Starship Asterisk*

[img3="Artist impression of chaotic magnetic field lines very near a newly emerging protostar. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; D. Berry"]https://public.nrao.edu/wp-content/uplo ... 24x768.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

For decades, scientists believed that the magnetic field lines around a forming star were extremely powerful and orderly, warping only under extreme force and at great distance from the nascent star.

Now, a team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has discovered a weak and wildly disorganized magnetic field strikingly near a newly emerging protostar. These observations suggest that the impact of magnetic fields on star formation is more complex than previously thought.

The researchers used ALMA to map the surprisingly disorganized magnetic field surrounding a young protostar dubbed Ser-emb 8, which resides about 1400 light-years away in the Serpens star-forming region. These new observations are the most sensitive ever made of the small-scale magnetic field suffusing the region surrounding a young forming star. They also provide important insights into the formation of low-mass stars like own sun. ...

• Astrophysical Journal Letters 842(2):L9 (2017 Jun 20) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa71b7
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1706.03806 > 12 Jun 2017