Magnetic ‘Rivers’ Feed Young Stars

This image shows narrow, spindle-like structures, called filaments, that act like rivers channeling material into the Serpens South star cluster, a group of more than 60 young stars that is forming in a dense cloud of gas and dust nearly 1,400 lightyears away. NASA’s telescope on an airplane, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, discovered magnetic fields in the region can further fuel star formation.