Galactic conveyor belts feed star formation

The role of magnetic fields in the formation of stars has been a hot topic among astrophysicists for decades. Now Juan Diego Soler of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) has shown that magnetic fields can favour and advance the compression of interstellar matter – a prerequisite for the formation of stars. This conclusion is based on the finding that in star forming regions the interstellar matter, depending on its density, is sometimes oriented parallel to, sometimes rather perpendicular to, the magnetic field lines.