The supernova-blown bubble in interstellar space is like a snow plow sweeping up gas and dust at its boundaries.
"We've long known that magnetic fields must play important roles in many astrophysical phenomena," Goodman said in the statement.
"But studying these magnetic fields has been notoriously difficult," she said."Today's computer simulations and all-sky surveys may just finally be good enough to start really incorporating magnetic fields into our broader picture of how the universe works, from the motions of tiny dust grains on up to the dynamics of galaxy clusters."
The key to mapping the magnetic-field structure of the Local Bubble is interstellar dust, particularly charged particles that can follow magnetic field lines across space. In particular, ESA's Planck mission, which studied theradiation between 2009 and 2013, was also sensitive to polarized microwave emission from this charged dust. The polarization tells of the orientation in which the dust is emitting microwaves; this orientation is affected by the magnetic-field lines.
To start, O'Neill assembled a 2D map of magnetic fields on the sky, before performing a geometrical analysis to turn it into a 3D representation.
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