Interstellar material around the Sun is typical for our neighborhood of the Galaxy. The physical properties and kinematics of the partially ionized interstellar material (ISM) near the Sun are typical of warm diffuse clouds in the solar vicinity. The direction of the interstellar magnetic field at the heliosphere, the polarization of light from nearby stars, and the kinematics of nearby clouds ...

Determining the direction of the local interstellar magnetic field (LISMF) is important for understanding the heliosphere’s global structure, the properties of the interstellar medium, and the propagation of cosmic rays in the local galactic medium. Measurements of interstellar neutral atoms by Ulysses for He and by SOHO/SWAN for H provided some of the first observational insights into the LISM...

The Zeeman splitting that a longitudinal magnetic field would produce on the ethynyl radical is calculated for the transitions typical of those observed in the interstellar clouds. It turns out that the ubiquitous CCH radical adds to the list of the few interstellar molecules that could be used to determine magnetic fields in molecular clouds.

The interstellar magnetic field strength and density are observed to be correlated, but there is a large dispersion in this relation. In particular, the magnetic field is often observed to be weaker than expected. It is usually assumed that the field is frozen into the gas except at very high density and low ionization fraction, in which case ion-neutral drift, or ambipolar diffusion, leads to ...

Magnetic fields on a range of scales play a large role in the ecosystems of galaxies, both in the galactic disk and in the extended layers of gas away from the plane. Observing magnetic field strength, structure and orientation is complex, and necessarily indirect. Observational data of magnetic fields in the halo of the Milky Way are scarce, and non-conclusive about the large-scale structure o...