{"id":22785,"date":"2019-06-19T04:57:12","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T04:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=22785"},"modified":"2019-06-19T04:57:12","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T04:57:12","slug":"our-galaxys-magnetic-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=22785","title":{"rendered":"Our Galaxys Magnetic Center"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img src='https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/image\/1906\/MwCenter_SofiaHubble_1032.jpg' style='max-width:600px;' \/><\/p>\n<div>What&#8217;s the magnetic field like in the center of our Milky Way Galaxy? To help find out, NASA&#8217;s SOFIA &#8212; an observatory flying in a modified 747 &#8212; imaged the central region with an instrument known as HAWC+. HAWC+ maps magnetism by observing polarized infrared light emitted by elongated dust grains rotating in alignment with the local magnetic field. Now at our Milky Way&#8217;s center is a supermassive black hole with a hobby of absorbing gas from stars it has recently destroyed. Our galaxy&#8217;s black hole, though, is relatively quiet compared to the absorption rate of the central black holes in active galaxies. The featured image gives a clue as to why &#8212; a surrounding magnetic field may either channel gas into the black hole &#8212; which lights up its exterior, or forces gas into an accretion-disk holding pattern, causing it to be less active &#8212; at least temporarily. Inspection of the featured image &#8212; appearing perhaps like a surreal mashup of impasto art and gravitational astrophysics &#8212; brings out this telling clue by detailing the magnetic field in and around a dusty ring surrounding Sagittarius A*, the black hole in our Milky Way&#8217;s center. via NASA <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap190619.html\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s the magnetic field like in the center of our Milky Way Galaxy? To help find out, NASA&#8217;s SOFIA &#8212; an observatory flying in a modified 747 &#8212; imaged the <a href=\"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=22785\" class=\"more-link\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"Layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10,12],"class_list":["entry","author-admin","post-22785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-whatsup","tag-ifttt","tag-nasa"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22785"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22786,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22785\/revisions\/22786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}