Use alcohol to study the school from the universe

Magnetism plays an important role in many astrophysical phenomena, but measuring them from very far distances is not an easy task.

However, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) have invented a new method, using methanol - the simplest form of alcohol.

According to a report in Nature Astronomy, it is not easy to understand how methanol works in harsh environments where stars form and attempts to create a similar experiment in the lab have failed. Therefore, the team created a theoretical model and worked with it, until the model proved consistent with what was observed from the universe and in the laboratory.

Impressive illustration of methanol and magnetic fields around a young star.(Photo: Wolfgang Steffen / Chalmers / Boy Lankhaar).

'We have developed a model that simulates how methanol works in the magnetic field, from the principles of' - Boy Lankhaar - Chalmers University of Technology, the leader of the study - said. 'From the very beginning, we saw the relationship between theoretical calculations and data from existing experiments. This helps us be more confident in the inference (extrapolation) with the conditions expected in space ' - Boy added.

The calculations needed to understand how methanol works will require a lot of effort. In addition, estimates from the above model should be as accurate as observed from radio telescopes, otherwise they will be useless.

'Because methanol molecules are relatively simple, we thought it would be easy to implement the project at first. However, after that it became very complicated because we had to do a lot of detailed calculations of methanol properties' - Ad van der Avoird - a theoretical chemist from Radboud University, co-author of research - said.

Methanol is useful for this study because it can emit a specific microwave signal in dense clouds in the area. This phenomenon is called Maze - or microwave amplification with emission stimuli, and the received signal is obviously very strong. By studying how magnetic fields affect this signal, scientists expect to gain new insights into the formation of giant stars.

Lankhaar adds: 'The magnetic field plays an extremely important role when big and heavy stars are formed. However, how the magnetic field affects this process is the subject of much debate among scientists. So we need to find a way to measure magnetic fields, and that's really a challenge. So far, thanks to these new calculations, we finally know how to perform that task with methanol '.

Magnetic fields always appear around stars, planets, and even black holes of all sizes. Even galaxies have magnetic fields. Clarifying how magnetic fields are formed and active is an important step in understanding how the celestial bodies work.