 How can you understand the universe if you don't understand magnetic fields? I'm a radio astronomer and I work at the University of Manchester at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics. I particularly like to look for magnetic fields in the very low density areas between galaxies, so the empty spaces if you like. And the reason that I'm looking in those particular places is because they're very instructive in understanding where magnetic fields came from in the first place. They determine how galaxies evolve, they're absolutely critical for forming stars like our Sun, but even though they're so important we still don't know where they come from. In the next 10 to 15 years we're going to be entering a very exciting period for radio astronomy and the reason for that is that we're building a new telescope and it's not just new it's really big and in radio astronomy terms that means really sensitive. It's going to give us the clearest and most detailed pictures of the universe and the magnetic fields in the universe that we've ever had. The new telescope is called the Square Kilometre Array and it's so big that it's not only spread across one country or multiple countries we're spreading it across continents. The Square Kilometre Array really is a big data machine. It can produce data at a hundred times the current global internet traffic and it's going to allow us to make the most detailed pictures of the universe yet.