Magnetic fingerprint of Milky Way created

Scientists have released an unprecedented map of the entire sky that charts the magnetic field shaping our Milky Way galaxy and helps in understanding the birth of the universe.
The image shows the magnetic field lines of our Milky Way galaxy. The fingerprint-like map allows astronomers to study the structure of the magnetic field and better understand the process of star formation.
The international team - which included researchers from the University of British Columbia - created the map using data from the Planck Space Telescope.
"This is the best picture we've ever had of the magnetic field in the Milky Way over such a large part of the sky," said Charles Lawrence, the US Planck project scientist for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Since 2009, the Planck telescope has charted the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the light from the Universe a mere 380,000 years after the Big Bang.
But Planck also observes light from much closer than the farthest reaches of time and space.

With its High Frequency Instrument, Planck detects the light from microscopic dust particles within our galaxy and helps identify the non-random direction in which the light waves vibrate - known as polarisation.
It is this polarised light that indicates the orientation of the field lines.
"Just as the Earth has a magnetic field, our galaxy has a large-scale magnetic field - albeit 100,000 times weaker than the magnetic field at the Earth's surface," said UBC Astrophysicist Douglas Scott.

"And just as the Earth's magnetic field generates phenomena such as the aurorae, our galaxy's magnetic field is important for many phenomena within it," said Scott.
"And now, Planck has given us the most detailed picture of it yet," Scott said.
Dust is often overlooked but it contains the stuff from which terrestrial planets and life form, said Professor Peter Martin from the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) at the University of Toronto.
"So by probing the dust, Planck helps us understand the complex history of the galaxy as well as the life within it," said Martin.
The "fingerprint" and other results are described in four forthcoming papers in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.