While analyzing a 10 billion-year-old radio signal, astronomers discovered a "mini-halo" — a cloud of energetic particles — around a far-off cluster of galaxies. The unexpected findings could further our understanding of the early universe.
This mini-halo is the most distant one ever detected, located twice as far from Earth as the next-farthest mini-halo. It is also massive, spanning more than 15 times the width of the Milky Way, and contains strong magnetic fields. The findings have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and are available on the preprint server arXiv.
