Snakes on a galactic plane: First scan of space between the stars looks like writhing nest of vipers

Daily Mail ^ | Thursday, October 6th, 2011 | Rob Waugh

[SunkenCiv]

To most people, the idea that space could be filled with thin, churning gas is distinctly odd -- but astronomers have been trying to photograph the 'turbulent gas' for 30 years.

'This is the first time anyone has been able to make a picture of this,' said Professor Bryan Gaensler of the University of Sydney, Australia.

This turbulence makes the universe magnetic, helps stars form, and spreads the heat from supernova explosions through the galaxy, said the study, published in Nature today.

Gaensler and his team studied a region of our galaxy about 10,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Norma. They used an Australian radio telescope -- the Telescope Compact Array -- to 'watch' radio waves from the Milky Way.

As these waves travel through the swirling interstellar gas, their polarisation was slightly altered -- an effect similar to the 'distortion' of looking through polarised glasses -- and the astronomers were able to 'see' the churning gas for the first time...

The team made computer simulations from their findings and found that the gas was 'writhing' at 44,000mph -- a leisurely pace, by interstellar standards...

The researchers measured the polarization changes over an area of sky and used them to make a spectacular image of overlapping entangled tendrils, resembling writhing snakes. The 'snakes' are regions of gas where the density and magnetic field are changing rapidly because of turbulence.

[ForGod'sSake]

I'm confused. In my formative years I was led to believe that "space" was a vast nothingness; an enormous vacuum of emptiness within which the infinitesimally small(by comparison) hard bodies resided. Then later, well, space is not exactly empty, oh and BTW, it's not exactly a vacuum either. Later still, and on the heels of these revelations comes another BTW; space contains most of the "matter" and energy in the universe. Say what?

Gotta wonder just who was responsible for naming this "stuff". I would have preferred something like, COOL matter and COOL energy, but that's just me.

Now it seems this "stuff" might more accurately be called ELECTRIC matter and ELECTRIC energy. We live in an electric universe? Have I got that right???

[SunkenCiv]

When there’s electrons and magnetic fields and nothing standing in their way to vast amounts of diffuse gases (not unlike a CF bulb), we are lucky to be living here, where we just have to put up with some lightning once in a while. :’)

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