Smashing Records: Astronomers Detect Fast Radio Burst From 8 Billion Light-Years Away

In a groundbreaking achievement, astronomers have made an extraordinary discovery – the detection of a fast radio burst (FRB) at a staggering distance of 8 billion light-years from Earth. This FRB, designated as FRB 20220610A, has set a new record as the most distant one ever identified. Its remarkable journey from a remote galaxy to our planet was precisely traced with the assistance of the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT). The light emitted by this cosmic phenomenon took an astonishing eight billion years to reach us, placing it firmly as the farthest known fast radio burst to date. Additionally, FRB 20220610A stands out as one of the most energetic FRBs ever observed, releasing the equivalent energy of our Sun’s total emissions over a span of just a fraction of a second.

This significant discovery is a testament to the capabilities of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope, which detected the burst in June of the previous year. Notably, it outperformed the team’s previous record for the farthest FRB detection by an impressive 50 percent.

Stuart Ryder, an astronomer from Macquarie University in Australia and co-lead author of the study published in Science, explained the breakthrough. “Using ASKAP’s array of dishes, we were able to determine precisely where the burst came from. Subsequently, we leveraged ESO’s VLT in Chile to pinpoint the source galaxy, revealing that it resides in a distant location, older and more distant than any previously discovered source of FRBs. It appears to be nestled within a small group of merging galaxies.”

This momentous discovery holds the potential to unlock a new method of measuring the elusive matter that resides between galaxies in the Universe. Current methods for estimating the Universe’s mass have yielded conflicting results, challenging the established model of cosmology. Ryan Shannon, a professor at the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia and co-leader of the study, remarked on this issue, stating, “If we tally up the amount of normal matter in the Universe—the atoms that constitute all known matter—we find that more than half of what should be present is currently unaccounted for. We believe that this missing matter exists in the vast expanses between galaxies, yet it may be so diffuse and hot that traditional observation techniques cannot detect it.”

Fast radio bursts, however, provide a unique means of sensing this ionized material. Even in regions of space that appear nearly empty, they have the capability to detect all the electrons present, enabling precise measurements of the matter residing between galaxies. This fundamental insight has been corroborated by the late Australian astronomer Jean-Pierre Macquart in 2020, who formulated the Macquart relation, establishing a connection between the distance of fast radio bursts and the amount of diffuse gas they reveal. The study’s findings affirm the validity of the Macquart relation, extending its applicability to beyond half of the known Universe.

While the precise origins of these colossal bursts of energy remain a mystery, this research underscores the common occurrence of fast radio bursts in the cosmos. Moreover, it underscores the potential to employ them as tools for detecting matter between galaxies and enhancing our comprehension of the Universe’s structure.

This discovery marks the current limit of what can be achieved with existing telescopes. However, astronomers anticipate future advancements in their toolkit. The international Square Kilometre Array Observatory is currently constructing two radio telescopes in South Africa and Australia, poised to uncover thousands of FRBs, including those situated at even greater distances than FRB 20220610A. Additionally, ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope, a monumental 39-meter telescope presently under construction in the Chilean Atacama Desert, will be among the few instruments capable of scrutinizing the source galaxies of FRBs that are even more distant.

Reference: “A luminous fast radio burst that probes the Universe at redshift 1” by S. D. Ryder, K. W. Bannister, S. Bhandari, A. T. Deller, R. D. Ekers, M. Glowacki, A. C. Gordon, K. Gourdji, C. W. James, C. D. Kilpatrick, W. Lu, L. Marnoch, V. A. Moss, J. X. Prochaska, H. Qiu, E. M. Sadler, S. Simha, M. W. Sammons, D. R. Scott, N. Tejos and R. M. Shannon, 19 October 2023, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.adf2678

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More about Fast Radio Burst Discovery

• ESO’s Very Large Telescope
• Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP)
• Square Kilometre Array Observatory
• Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs)