Mysterious radio burst came from group of galaxies in distant universe

An artist’s impression (not to scale) of the path of the fast radio burst FRB 20220610A M. Kornmesser/European Southern Observatory An unexplained flash of radio waves that hit Earth in 2022 came from a small group of galaxies some 8 billion light years away. The discovery expands our understanding of the way in which the mysterious fast radio bursts (FRBs) can form.

To date astronomers have discovered more than 1000 FRBs, strange bursts of radio waves seen across the sky that last just milliseconds. Some of the events repeat and can be seen flashing multiple times. A leading explanation is that the FRBs are generated by powerful rotating stars known as magnetars – highly magnetised spinning cores left behind after massive stars explode as supernovae.

Read more Advertisement About 50 FRBs have been pinpointed to sources in the Milky Way and other galaxies, but in 2022 astronomers found the most distant and powerful FRB yet – the non repeating FRB 20220610A – dating back to when the universe was only 5 billion years old. at Northwestern University in Illinois and colleagues followed up on the discovery.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope in April 2023, they found that FRB 20220610A originated in a small dwarf galaxy that was part of a compact group of seven galaxies, so small that the entire group would fit inside our Milky Way. “It’s a very rare system,” says Gordon. “At the distance of this FRB, only about 0.1 to 1 per cent of galaxies are in compact groups.” Such groups are thought to be active regions of star formation.

This supports the magnetar explanation for FRBs, as magnetars probably form when hot and massive stars that exist early in galaxies explode as supernovae. In compact groups “the galaxies are interacting pretty frequently”, says Gordon, triggering star formation – which matches what we see in studies of FRBs generated by sources that are younger – and so closer – to Earth.

Sign up to our Lost in Space Time newsletter Untangle the weirdness of reality with our monthly newsletter. The work was uploaded to the arXiv preprint server late last year, and was also presented today at a . The discovery adds to the environments in which we know FRBs can exist. “The majority are in star forming spiral galaxies,” says Gordon.

“But we’ve also discovered FRBs in galaxy clusters, dwarf galaxies, and a globular cluster. Adding ‘compact group’ to this list is another example of how we’re finding FRBs in diverse places.” Reference: Topics:.