Galaxy 5 billion light-years away shows we live in a magnetic universe

A team of astronomers observed the magnetic field of a galaxy five billion light-years from Earth. The galaxy is the most distant in which a coherent magnetic field has been observed and provides important insight into how magnetism in the Universe formed and evolved.

The observation shows a magnetic field of a similar strength and configuration to that seen in our own Milky Way Galaxy, even though the distant galaxy is five billion years younger than ours. This is evidence that galactic magnetic fields form early in a galaxy's life and remain relatively stable.

"This finding is exciting," says Dr. Sui Ann Mao, an astronomer and Minerva Research Group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and lead author of the paper describing the observation.

"It is now the record holder of the most distant galaxy for which we have this magnetic field information." The paper will be published August 28th in Nature Astronomy.

UCJ, UNILORIN.