This story brings a new view on a galaxy that is an old favorite to many amateur astronomers: the Whirlpool Nebula or M51. While the image we’re showing may look like it was made with some new photoshop or Instagram filter, it is actually a combination of a Hubble image and magnetic field data taken by the SOFIA airborne observatory. Using its own style of polarized glasses, SOFIA is able to see how magnetic fields twist through the galaxy. To the surprise of the observers, and adding to the beauty of this image, these lines become more chaotic the farther one looks from the edge of the galaxy.

I kind of want a magnetic field filter for Instagram, but I’m not sure I can afford a camera like SOFIA’s.

More Information

USRA press release