Scientists Recreate Cosmic ‘Fireballs’ in Lab to Solve Mystery of Missing Gamma Rays

In a world-first breakthrough, scientists have recreated plasma “fireballs” in a laboratory to investigate why certain gamma rays vanish in space. The international research team, led by the University of Oxford, used the Super Proton Synchrotron accelerator at CERN to mimic extreme plasma jets seen in blazars—galaxies powered by supermassive black holes. Published in PNAS, the study recreates how electron–positron beams travel through space and aims to explain a long-standing puzzle about hidden magnetic fields and missing gamma-ray signals from deep space.

CERN Experiment Recreates Cosmic Jets, Solving Mystery of Missing Gamma Rays

According to the published report, researchers from Oxford and the UK's Central Laser Facility generated high-energy particle beams at CERN and sent them through plasma to simulate cosmic jet behaviour. While blazars send us very high-energy gamma rays that originated on their way from across the universe, we do not observe as many lower-energy gamma rays as expected to be made around our neighbourhood using telescopes like NASA's Fermi satellite. One of the theories, scientists say, is that the beams may be unstable in space and lose energy on their way to Earth.

The experiment, however, showed the opposite. The plasma beams stayed narrow, stable, and almost perfectly aligned, producing very weak magnetic fields. The study suggests missing gamma rays aren't due to beam instability but support extremely weak intergalactic magnetic fields from the early universe.

The discovery could lead to new insights into cosmic magnetic fields and plasma jets, the researchers say — and it might even be a clue as to physics beyond the Standard Model. Scientists hope that upcoming observatories like the Cherenkov Telescope Array will be able to determine whether faint intergalactic magnetic fields are blocking some of the missing gamma rays.