Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Scientists Find Doublehelix at Center of Milky Way

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the that's-no-moon dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Astronomers report an unprecedented elongated double helix nebula near the center of our Milky Way galaxy, using observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The part of the nebula the astronomers observed stretches 80 light years in length."

3 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Journal link by brian0918 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is the Nature article abtract:

    "A magnetic torsional wave near the Galactic Centre traced by a 'double helix' nebula"

    The magnetic field in the central few hundred parsecs of the Milky Way has a dipolar geometry and is substantially stronger than elsewhere in the Galaxy, with estimates ranging up to a milligauss (refs 1-6). Characterization of the magnetic field at the Galactic Centre is important because it can affect the orbits of molecular clouds by exerting a drag on them, inhibit star formation, and could guide a wind of hot gas or cosmic rays away from the central region. Here we report observations of an infrared nebula having the morphology of an intertwined double helix about 100 parsecs from the Galaxy's dynamical centre, with its axis oriented perpendicular to the Galactic plane. The observed segment is about 25 parsecs in length, and contains about 1.25 full turns of each of the two continuous, helically wound strands. We interpret this feature as a torsional Alfvén wave propagating vertically away from the Galactic disk, driven by rotation of the magnetized circumnuclear gas disk. The direct connection between the circumnuclear disk and the double helix is ambiguous, but the images show a possible meandering channel that warrants further investigation.

  2. Re:Higher Res Picture? by edward.virtually@pob · · Score: 5, Informative

    To answer my own question, here is the link.

  3. Re:If you look REALLY closely by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Informative
    If no one gets the joke, the music played in "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite", the last part of 2001: A Space Odyssey was composed by György Ligeti, noted composer born in Dicsöszentmárton (now Tarnaveni), Romania, educated in Budapest, and finally based in Germany and Austria after fleeing Hungary. The first piece played is the Kyrie from his "Requiem for soprano, mezzo-soprano, mixed choir, and orchestra", whose definitive recording according to the composer is on Warner Classics' The Ligeti Project Vol 4 . The second piece is "Atmospheres" for orchestra, whose definitive recording is on The Ligeti Project Vol 2 , although the recording used by Kubrick was highly altered and only a portion is heard. In another portion of the film, when Floyd is travelling over the lunar surface to visit the monolith, Ligeti's "Lux Aeterna" for choir a capella is heard.

    Kubrick never asked Ligeti for permission to use his music, and the composer was very unhappy when he found out. He filed a lawsuit against MGM, but later had to settle out of court for a paltry sum (just $4,000 or so). The joke in Steinitz's biography Gyorgy Ligeti: Music of the Imagination goes that Ligeti once met an MGM employee who said that Ligeti was mad to file the suit in England, where it would go nowhere, instead of in the United States.