Astronomers detect mysterious burst of energy from a galaxy far, far away
Summary
Astronomers have detected a fast radio burst (FRB) from a galaxy about 10 billion light-years away, making it the most distant FRB ever observed. This burst traveled through most of the universe’s history before reaching Earth. Scientists used radio and space telescopes to identify the burst and its young, star-forming galaxy.Key Facts
- Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are very short, intense bursts of radio waves, emitting huge amounts of energy in milliseconds.
- The newly detected burst, named FRB 20240304B, is from when the universe was about 3 billion years old.
- This FRB is more than twice as far as the previous furthest FRB detected.
- The burst was found using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa and its galaxy was identified by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
- The host galaxy is young, small, rapidly forming stars, and has very little metal content.
- Scientists are still unsure what causes FRBs, with one idea being magnetars—stars with very strong magnetic fields.
- More than 10,000 FRBs have been detected since 2007; some repeat, while others happen only once.
- FRBs help scientists measure the amount of matter in the universe, including matter that cannot be seen with normal telescopes.
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