Giant Magnetic Halo Discovered Wrapped Around The Milky Way

11 October 2024
By Michelle Starr



The eROSITA bubbles (green) with the magnetic fields overlaid in white. (Zhang et al., Nature Astronomy, 2024)
Our little piece of the Universe is contained within a vast shell of dark matter.

Though the space between the few isolated stars scattered throughout this largely invisible sphere seems empty, there's a lot going on out there in the wilds of the Milky Way.

By studying hot gas glowing in circumgalactic space, astrophysicists have found evidence of enormous magnetic fields that wind through and around our galaxy's dark matter 'halo'.

"This work provides the first detailed measurements of the magnetic fields in the Milky Way's X-ray emitting halo and uncovers new connections between star-forming activities and galactic outflows," explains astrophysicist He-Shou Zhang of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Italy.

"Our findings show that the magnetic ridges we observed are not just coincidental structures but are closely related to the star-forming regions in our galaxy."

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/giant-magnetic-halo-discovered-wrapped-around-the-milky-way