Overview
- Researchers from CSIRO and the SKA Observatory released the SPICE-RACS map in early June 2026 as the biggest and most detailed survey of cosmic magnetism to date.
- The map was built by measuring Faraday rotation in radio waves collected by ASKAP’s RACS program, using rotation measures drawn from nearly 4 million detected sources and a processed sample of hundreds of thousands of usable measures.
- All SPICE-RACS data products and visual maps have been made openly available through CSIRO’s archive, and a paper describing the work has been accepted by Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia.
- Scientists say the dataset will let them trace magnetic-field direction and relative strength across the southern sky, helping studies of galaxy formation, Milky Way interactions with the Magellanic Clouds, and the possible origin and evolution of cosmic magnetic fields.
- ASKAP’s survey is a major step ahead of past maps dating back to 2009 but remains an intermediate dataset ahead of deeper, higher-resolution observations planned with the Square Kilometre Array, with SKA-Low not expected to be complete until about 2030.