Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA via Space.com

Astronomers and astrophysicists have their knickers in a twist over a cosmic double helix hanging out near the galactic center of the Milky Way. The Double Helix Nebula, which was detected by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, is 80 light-years long and sits about 300 light-years from a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. Scientists think that twisting magnetic-field lines from the galactic center have caused the nebula to fold on itself into its distinctive shape. —Martha Harbison

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