Astronomers Say They've Discovered the Largest Magnetic Fields in the Universe

ESA/Hubble & NASA/Judy Schmidt

Galaxies don't drift freely through the empty void of space. Gravity organises most of them into groups, called galaxy clusters, which can be tens of millions of light-years wide or larger. That makes them the biggest structures in the known universe.

However, astronomers now think collisions between galaxy clusters are generating the largest magnetic fields in the cosmos, according to a new study in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Researchers have detected about 70 such relics since the first one's discovery in 1970, according to a press release by the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.

In the new study, an international team of astronomers zeroed in on some of these relics to see if they're generating any invisible magnetic fields - and they certainly are.

The fields are likely dozens of times wider than the Milky Way, and about half as powerful as the one generated by our galaxy's motion through space - pretty impressive for a diffuse cloud of gas.

The researchers think such fields are caused by rotation of the gas left behind by collisions. The shape and strength of the relics also suggest that galaxy clusters can smash together at speeds of more than 2,000 kilometres per second (4.47 million miles per hour).
Now that the astronomers have shown that radio waves can reveal giant magnetic fields in space, they plan to hunt for more.

This article was originally published by Business Insider