THE first ever magnetic fields in the universe arose within 370,000 years after the big bang, suggests a new analysis which – unlike some previous theories – relies on established physics, and may also tell us about the very first stars.
Magnetic fields like those of the Earth and sun were set up by the turbulent mixing of conducting fluids in their cores. But the large-scale fields tangled within galaxies and clusters of galaxies are harder to explain through mixing alone. That is because most galaxies have rotated only a few dozen times since they formed, and would have needed an…
