You can think of this structure as a giant, magnetic Slinky wrapped around a long, finger-like interstellar cloud. The magnetic field lines are like stretched rubber bands; the tension squeezes the cloud into its filamentary shape.

You can think of this structure as a giant, magnetic Slinky wrapped around a long, finger-like interstellar cloud. The magnetic field lines are like stretched rubber bands the tension squeezes the cloud into its filamentary shape.

We combined radio measurements we made of the Zeeman effect and optical measurements of magnetic fields from starlight.

The process of star formation is obscured because it takes place in these dense molecular clouds, so it's not yet directly observable. Astrophysicists believe that magnetic fields play a strong role in regulating the star formation by affecting the shape of these molecular clouds.

What we see strongly suggests that the magnetic field is indeed helical. If it is so, then this tells us a lot about the role magnetic fields might play in molecular clouds and star formation. It would be a major piece of evidence in trying to solve this mystery of how stars form.

We wanted to make very high-resolution slices across the filament and see if the field really did reverse; if it did, then it's very likely that the field is somehow tied up in the filament.