Breathtaking Image Shows Powerful Magnetic 'Ropes' Surrounding The Whale Galaxy

Composite image of the Whale Galaxy. (Jayanne English/University of Manitoba)

DAVID NIELD 2 JAN 2020

Sometimes you just have to stand back in awe at the beauty of the Universe – and that's absolutely the case with this image from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which captures the side view of a spiral galaxy know as the Whale Galaxy.

But if you look closer, the stunning picture also shows something else: the magnetic 'ropes' around the edges of the galaxy's disc.

These filaments, like cosmic strands of hair, show the galaxy's magnetic field extending into its halo.

The green colouring shows filaments with their magnetic field pointing towards the viewer, with the blue colouring showing filaments with their magnetic field pointing away. This phenomenon has never before been directly observed in the halo of a galaxy.

"This is the first time that we have clearly detected what astronomers call large-scale, coherent, magnetic fields far in the halo of a spiral galaxy, with the field lines aligned in the same direction over distances of a thousand light-years," says astrophysicist Marita Krause, from the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/incredible-image-of-the-whale-galaxy-shows-it-s-surrounded-by-magnetic-ropes?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1