Milky Way’s halo is filled with huge doughnut-shaped magnetic fields, say Chinese scientists

After collecting 60,000 Faraday rotation measurements, researchers have found invisible magnetic fields in the Milky Way’s halo

The scientific breakthrough will help with our understanding of the origin and evolution of magnetism in the universe

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Chinese scientists have discovered large doughnut-shaped magnet fields in the halo of the Milky Way. Photo:
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Published: 2:40pm, 20 May 2024Updated: 3:42am, 21 May 2024

Chinese scientists have revealed that the halo of the Milky Way is filled with massive, doughnut-shaped magnetic fields.

Measuring 12,000 to 100,000 light-years across, these invisible magnetic doughnuts sit inside the vast gas clouds that envelop the galaxy’s bright, spinning disk, with the galaxy’s heart at their centre, according to researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) in Beijing.

While their magnetic strength was only about one-millionth of the Earth’s magnetic field, they played an instrumental part in shaping the Milky Way into what it is today, the researchers wrote in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal last week.

“Magnetic fields are ubiquitous in our Milky Way and play a significant role in the evolution of molecular clouds, star formation and the transport of cosmic rays,” the team wrote in the paper.

The study will help determine the large-scale structure of magnetic fields in our galaxy, something that has baffled astronomers for decades – and crucial to understanding the origin and evolution of magnetism in the universe, the scientists wrote.

Magnetic forces are everywhere – from a fridge magnet, to a compass, to the Earth’s magnetic field which protects life from the attacks of high-energy solar particles and cosmic radiation.