You're Looking at a Map of the Milky Way's Magnetic Field By Nancy_A
“We have characterized the synchrotron emission from our Galaxy with unprecedented accuracy. This radiation is the result of the emission by charged particles moving at velocities close to that of light within the Galactic magnetic field. These maps, the result of almost 9,000 hours of observation, are a unique tool for studying magnetism in the universe.”
The work on this mapping project started in 2012, and the team has now published a series of 6 scientific papers that provide the most accurate description to date of the polarization of the emission of the Milky Way at microwave wavelengths. Polarization is a “property of transverse waves such as light waves that specifies the direction of the oscillations of the waves and signifies the presence of a magnetic field,” the team explained.
The polarized microwave emission measured by QUIJOTE. The pattern of lines superposed shows the direction of the magnetic field lines. Credit: The QUIJOTE Collaboration. The new maps from QUIJOTE have also provided new data for studying a recently detected excess of microwave emission from the center of our Galaxy. The origin of this emission is currently unknown, but it could be connected to the decay processes of dark matter particles.
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