Scientists reveal never-before-seen map of the Milky Way's central engine (image)

The Milky Way is our home galaxy, but how well do we actually know it? As part of a NASA-funded project, a team led by Villanova University researchers has obtained a never-before-seen view of the central engine at the heart of our galaxy., which took four years to assemble, reveals the relationship between magnetic fields at the heart of our galaxy and the cold dust structures that dwell there. This dust forms the building blocks of stars, planets, and, ultimately, life as we know it.

"The center of the Milky Way and most of the space between stars is filled with a lot of dust, and this is important for our galaxy's life cycle," David Chuss, research team leader and a physics professor at Villanova University, told Space.com."What we looked at was light emitted from these cool dust grains produced by heavy elements forged in stars and dispersed when those stars die and explode.", which is packed with an estimated 60 million solar masses of dust.

The project's Far-Infrared Polarimetric Large Area CMZ Exploration created an infrared map that spans around 500 light-years across the center of the Milky Way over nine flights. A map of the central region of the Milky Way with hot gas in pink, cool dust in blue and radio-wave-emitting filaments in yellow."This is a journey, not a destination, but what we've found is this is a very complicated thing. The directions of the magnetic field vary all across the clouds at the center of the Milky Way," Chuss explained.

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