For the first time, scientists have completely mapped one of the 'bones' of the Milky Way galaxy.
; however, what star formation does take place tends to do so in these so-called bones.
However, the magnetic fields of said bones have been poorly constrained. Stephens and team have made use of SOFIA, a modified Boeing that flies above Earth's stratosphere to avoid infrared interference, to take measurements of 10 of the bones. The first of these is G47. The team used SOFIA to take observations of the infrared light emitted by dust in G47. Non-spherical dust grains align along the direction of the magnetic field, which can be detected in the polarization of the infrared light they emit. Researchers can use that polarization to map the orientation of magnetic field lines within a volume of space.The study revealed that the magnetic fields are sometimes, but often not, perpendicular to the center of the bone.