Farthest radio burst yet brings young Universe into view
A burst from a small galaxy occurred when the Universe was about three billion years old.
Astronomers have localised the radio burst that, to date, came from farthest from Earth. The outburst came from a small, active galaxy dating from a period when the Universe was only about three billion years old.
The radio burst was named FRB 20240304B and was recorded in 2024 with the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa. Such fast radio bursts last only a few milliseconds, but temporarily contain enormous amounts of energy. The researchers localised the source with the help of the James Webb Space Telescope.
The source has a redshift of 2.148. This means that the light came from the distant past, when the Universe was about three billion years old. The radio burst then travelled for roughly ten billion years before being measured on Earth.
The associated galaxy turned out to be much smaller than astronomers had expected. It is a young, clumpy and actively star-forming dwarf galaxy with a low mass. That result provides clues about the conditions in which fast radio bursts can arise.
The burst is interesting not only because of the distance record. As the radio signal travelled through space, it was affected by gas and magnetic fields between galaxies. By measuring those changes, researchers can study the distribution of matter that is difficult to observe with ordinary telescopes.
There is still no complete agreement about the origin of fast radio bursts. Possible explanations include magnetars, highly magnetic neutron stars, and collisions between neutron stars. According to the researchers, the properties of this source fit a young magnetar better than a merger, but that is not definitive evidence.
The research has been published in Science and is therefore peer-reviewed. This makes the results more robust than an unchecked preprint, but this study too does not rule out follow-up measurements. More localised bursts from the early Universe must show whether these small, young galaxies are representative.
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The main astronomical facts have been confirmed by the publication and the university involved. Hypotheses about the source of the burst are presented as hypotheses.
- confirmed FRB 20240304B is the most distant fast radio burst ever localised. — Reported by the University of Manchester and described in the Science publication. source
- confirmed The source occurred when the Universe was about three billion years old. — Inferred from the measured redshift of 2.148. source
- confirmed The source is located in a small, actively star-forming galaxy. — This is stated in the university's description of the research. source
- confirmed A young magnetar is a possible explanation for the burst, but this has not been proved. — The researchers discuss magnetars and neutron-star mergers as possible explanations. source