January 30, 2018

Artist's concept of a star in formation with signals from methanol (Image courtesy Wolfgang Steffen/Boy Lankhaar et al. (molecules: Wikimedia Commons/Ben Mills))

An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” describes a research that provides a way to use methanol to measure magnetic fields existing in space. A team of researchers led by Boy Lankhaar of the Chalmers Univerisity in Gothenburg, Sweden, studied the properties of methanol to use it in the calculation of magnetic fields that play an important role in the formation of massive stars.