Ancient Magnetic Galaxy Sheds Light on Milky Way's History

Astronomers have detected a magnetic field spanning 16,000 light years in an ancient galaxy, known as 9io9, which existed over 11 billion years ago. This is the earliest detection of galactic magnetism in the universe. The discovery was made using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. The weak magnetic field suggests that intense star formation in the early stages of the galaxy's life helped propagate the magnetic field across the galaxy. This finding provides new insights into the formation of galactic magnetic fields and their role in galactic evolution.