The Hubble Space Telescope reveals the source of the most powerful radio burst ever recorded

"Astronomers discover that the fastest radio burst ever observed came not from a single galaxy, but from a group of merging galaxies"

In the summer of 2022, astronomers measured the most powerful fast radio burst (FRB) ever observed, coming from a location dating back to when the universe was half its current age. It is also the most distant FRB discovered so far.

Now, astronomers led by Northwestern University have located the special origin of the unusual bone - and it is indeed quite intriguing.

Using images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, researchers traced the FRB back to not one galaxy but a group of at least seven galaxies. The galaxies in the collection appear to be interacting with one another—perhaps even on the way to a possible merger. Such groups of galaxies are are rare and may have led to the conditions that created the FRB.

The unexpected finding may challenge scientific models of how FRBs form and what causes them.

Alexa Gordon, a graduate student in astronomy at Northwestern University, led the study. She noted that "without the Hubble observation, it would still remain a mystery: Did this FRB come from a single-cluster galaxy or some kind of interacting system? It's these kinds of strange environments that lead us to a better understanding of the mystery of FRBs." "

Wen-Pai Fong, a professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University and a co-author of the study, said: "There are some signs that group members are 'communicating' with each other. In other words, they can exchange materials or may be on the way to a merger. These galaxy groups (called galaxy clusters compactness), are both the rarest environments in the universe and the densest galaxy-scale structures we know."

Despite the hundreds of FRB events that have been detected so far, only a small number of them have located the galaxies from which the source of the radio signal was emitted. Within that small fraction, only a very few came from a dense galactic environment, but none of them had ever been seen in such a compact group. Therefore, his birthplace is really rare.

Although astronomers have detected about 000 FRBs since they were first discovered in 2007, their origin is difficult to pinpoint. While astronomers have yet to reach a consensus on the possible mechanisms for the formation of FRBs, they generally agree that FRBs must involve a compact object, such as a black hole or neutron star.

By uncovering the true nature of FRBs, astronomers can not only learn about the mysterious phenomena, but also about the true nature of the universe itself. When the radio waves eventually meet our telescopes, they have traveled billions of years from the early, distant universe. During this interuniversal odyssey, they interact with matter along the way. The radio waves are particularly sensitive to any material along the line of sight from the location of the FRB to us.

To continue studying FRBs and their origins, astronomers need to discover and study more of them. With technology continually improving, Gordon says more discoveries—perhaps even the detection of ultra-subtle FRBs—are just around the corner.