In the news Friday morning .. a bit of a plug for a new 747-airborn Infrared observatory, but some interesting snippets, also:
NASA's SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) will likely help solve mysteries about our Galaxy"
http://www.physorg.com/news202030757.html
"Studies by UCLA researchers have revealed that star formation is taking place in the immediate presence of the supermassive black hole.
"Our previous assumption was that the black hole would make that star formation next to impossible; the tidal forces would not allow the collapse of a cloud of gas and dust to form a star. But it's happening, within just a light year of the black hole," said Mark Morris, a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and co-chair of SOFIA's science steering committee, who is scheduled to participate in SOFIA's science flights. "We are trying to understand, through observations using both short and long infrared wavelengths, what happens to the dust and gas that allows stars to form. We have some ideas."
...
"SOFIA can do something else that very few observatories can, and that is look at magnetic fields," Becklin said.
...
"Star formation is strongly affected by the presence of a magnetic field."
...
"We know next to nothing about the magnetic fields, except there is a strong magnetic field present in the galactic center," he said. "We want to know how strong it is and what its effects are."
The last bit should make some folk happy.
Cheers
