In a groundbreaking experiment, scientists recreated “cosmic fireballs” on Earth using a particle accelerator to study the high-temperature plasma jets emitted by blazars—supermassive black hole-powered galactic engines.

Teams from the University of Oxford and the STFC’s Central Laser Facility used CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron to generate electron–positron pairs and blast them through a meter of plasma, simulating conditions in these extreme cosmic jets.

The experiment allows researchers to investigate the origin of magnetic fields and missing high-energy gamma-rays in intergalactic space.

Findings could shed light on how such phenomena were seeded in the early, uniform universe and may point to physics beyond the Standard Model, Space.com has reported.

The study, demonstrating the potential of laboratory astrophysics, was published on Nov. 3 in PNAS.