A fast radio burst, often abbreviated as FRB, is a brief pulse of radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation. Despite its extremely short duration, an FRB can outshine the majority of other radio wave sources in the universe. These phenomena have recently reached Earth after traversing a cosmic journey spanning 8 billion years.
Astronomers have identified a powerful burst of radio waves originating from what appears to be a collision of galaxies dating back approximately 8 billion years ago. This represents the earliest documented occurrence of a perplexing phenomenon known as a fast radio burst, which continues to elude a complete scientific explanation.
In a span of less than a millisecond, this burst released an energy equivalent to what our sun emits over the course of three decades, as per the researchers’ findings. The detection was made possible using the Australian SKA Pathfinder, a radio telescope located in Western Australia. The burst’s precise location was pinpointed with the assistance of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, which ranks among the most potent optical telescopes in the world.
A fast radio burst, commonly known as FRB, is a brief pulse of electromagnetic radiation in the radio-frequency range. Despite its extremely short duration, typically lasting just a fraction of a second, an FRB emits a remarkable level of radio waves, surpassing the intensity of most other celestial sources of radio waves in the vast expanse of the universe. It’s worth noting that radio waves have the longest wavelengths within the electromagnetic spectrum.
Astronomer Ryan Shannon from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, who co-led the study published in the journal Science, stated, “The radio waves in FRBs are similar to those used in microwave ovens. The amount of energy in this FRB is equivalent to microwaving a bowl of popcorn twice the size of the sun.” This vividly illustrates the immense energy released by fast radio bursts.
Up until this discovery, the oldest-known fast radio burst was dated to approximately 5 billion years ago. This recent find, originating from a merger of galaxies about 8 billion years ago, is a remarkable 3 billion years older. It’s worth noting that the universe itself is about 13.8 billion years old, while Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. This fast radio burst is not only the most ancient of its kind but also the most distant FRB ever detected, highlighting the ability of astronomers to peer across immense cosmic distances to observe events and objects from the distant past.