G47 with Magnetic Streamlines

A long horizontal narrow orange cloud on a background of soupy brown and gray clouds. Magnetic field streamlines are laid over the orange cloud like stripes on a tiger's back.

A map shows the direction of magnetic fields in the G47 bone overlain atop an image of the G47 filament as seen by the Herschel Space Observatory. The red and yellow areas are high-density regions of dust and gas. Credit: G47: ESA/Herschel/PACS/SPIRE/Ke Wang et al. 2015; Polarization map: Stephens et al., 2022

SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, was a Boeing 747SP aircraft modified to carry a 2.7-meter (106-inch) reflecting telescope (with an effective diameter of 2.5 meters or 100 inches). Flying into the stratosphere at 38,000-45,000 feet put SOFIA above 99 percent of Earth’s infrared-blocking atmosphere, allowing astronomers to study the solar system and beyond in ways that are not possible with ground-based telescopes. SOFIA was a joint project of NASA and the German Space Agency at DLR.