New All-Sky Map Shows the Magnetic Fields of the Milky Way 41
An anonymous reader writes "With a unique new all-sky map, scientists at MPA have made significant progress toward measuring the magnetic field structure of the Milky Way in unprecedented detail. Specifically, the map is of a quantity known as Faraday depth, which among other things, depends strongly on the magnetic fields along a particular line of sight. To produce the map, data were combined from more than 41,000 individual measurements using a novel image reconstruction technique. The work was a collaboration between scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), who are specialists in the new discipline of information field theory, and a large international team of radio astronomers. The new map not only reveals the structure of the galactic magnetic field on large scales, but also small-scale features that provide information about turbulence in the galactic gas."
Slashdotted already?!? (Score:1)
Looks like the slashdot effect is in full force already...
Re:Slashdotted already?!? (Score:5, Funny)
The magnetic field structure of the galaxy pales in comparison to the power of the Slashdot Effect.
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It's actually Homegalaxy Security, making sure you don't know where they store all the magnets....
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They probably have the ICP on a watchlist.
Re:Slashdotted already?!? FTFY (Score:5, Informative)
Here is another site we can try to destroy with the power of the force.
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/mpa/institute/news_archives/news1112_fara/news1112_fara-en-print.html [mpa-garching.mpg.de]
Oblig. (Score:3, Funny)
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The origin and causes of galactic magnetic fields (or, the moving charges that cause them) is unknown and there are competing theories. One is that it is a residual property frozen in matter originating in the big bang.
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http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fcking-magnets-how-do-they-work [knowyourmeme.com]
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I don't wanna talk to an astrologist, y'all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed!
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Aw crap made the infamous L vs. N mistake...that's what happens when you're laughing too hard.
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What's a astronogist?
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Yeah yeah, I made a mistake. Rap battle instincts took over and chose the word that rhymed better.
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you didn't listen closely enough. he said you'd get screwed. the U.S. government has been doing that to you for decades.
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Miracles [knowyourmeme.com]
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Funny)
As the Turtle's shell rubs the fur on the elephants' backs, it builds up an electric charge, which results in a magnetic field.
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Why are the elephants on their backs?
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The origin of the magnetic field of the Milky Way has been discovered. It is amazingly a very recent phenomenon that has arisen in the last fifteen years, due to geeks taking apart broken hard drives and separating their very powerful rare earth magnet pairs.
Google cache link (Score:2, Informative)
Google Cache Link [googleusercontent.com]
Shouldn't /. automatically append a cache link to every submitted link?
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Agreed. A wayback machine link would, however, be fun.
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No, that'd just break the Wayback Machine.
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<Electric Universe Rant Placeholder> (Score:1)
<Tangential tie-in due to reference to cosmic magnetic fields. Breathless, incoherent pseudoscience with suggestion of a conspiracy in mainstream physics to suppress this enlightened perspective. Also, TimeCube.>
What would be nice... (Score:5, Interesting)
...would be a magnetic map superimposed on an inverse map of known stellar objects where "brightness" is the estimated mass calibrated such that stars that behave as we'd expect them to will show up as black (or near to it). (ie: calculate what you'd hypothesize the magnetic fields "should" be if all models are correct, then look at the difference between what you see and what you expect to see.)
In other words, what doesn't match up? Maps are wonderful things, but in science you really don't care too much about the knowns. The unknowns are much more fun. Knowing where there are magnetic fields where there's no identifiable source, where the magnetic field for stars are unexpectedly strong or unexpectedly weak - that's where it gets really interesting. You can do a lot where data doesn't match the hypothesis. There's a lot less you can do when they do match and there's absolutely nothing you can do if you don't make any predictions at all.
Migration (Score:2)
1) Collect a bunch of butterflies
2) Make them little space suits
3) Improve lifespan by several orders of magnitude
4) Map galaxy's magnetic fields [CHECK]
5) ???
Re:Migration (Score:4, Funny)
I wonder... (Score:1)
So big of a galaxy... (Score:3)