THE long thin structures cutting across the centre of our Galaxy have been
puzzling astronomers ever since they were discovered 17 years ago. Now, two
Australian researchers suggest that the longest of these radio-emitting
filaments, the Snake, is in fact a magnetic tube 200 light years long and
twisted into two loops. Such twisted filaments may help explain how stars form
in some molecular clouds.
In a paper that will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters,
Geoff Bicknell and Jianke Li of the Australian National University in Canberra
describe how the two kinks in the Snake, where radio emission is…
