Paris, September 17, 2024 — A powerful fast radio burst (FRB), named FRB 20220610A, has reached Earth after traveling through space for an astonishing 8 billion years, making it one of the most distant and energetic signals ever recorded. This discovery, reported by Earth.com, offers a groundbreaking opportunity to explore the distant past of the universe.
Fast radio bursts are brief, intense pulses of radio waves that last only milliseconds, yet they release an immense amount of energy. Since their discovery in 2007, FRBs have puzzled astronomers, with possible explanations ranging from neutron stars to more exotic cosmic phenomena.
Dr. Stuart Ryder, an astronomer at Macquarie University, is leading the investigation into this enigmatic event. His team, using advanced radio telescopes like the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), has pinpointed the signal’s origin in a distant galaxy. Follow-up observations using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope revealed that this galaxy is older and farther away than any previous FRB source.
“This detection not only pushes the boundaries of what we know about fast radio bursts but also gives us a unique view into processes occurring billions of years ago,” said Dr. Ryder.
One of the most exciting aspects of this discovery is the potential to solve the “missing matter” problem in cosmology. According to Professor Ryan Shannon, over half of the universe’s normal matter remains undetected. FRBs could be the key to locating this elusive matter, which may be hidden in the vast, hot regions between galaxies. A method called the Macquart relation has been used to trace this hidden matter, and the detection of FRB 20220610A further validates this approach.
As researchers continue to investigate the origins of FRBs, this discovery has reinforced the idea that these cosmic bursts could help unravel some of the universe’s biggest mysteries, including its structure and the distribution of matter.
The full study on FRB 20220610A was published in the journal Science, marking a major step forward in understanding the cosmos.
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