Introduction
Introduction Statistics Contact Development Disclaimer Help
.-') _ .-') _
( OO ) ) ( OO ) )
.-----. ,--./ ,--,' ,--./ ,--,'
' .--./ | \ | |\ | \ | |\
| |('-. | \| | )| \| | )
/_) |OO )| . |/ | . |/
|| |`-'| | |\ | | |\ |
(_' '--'\ | | \ | | | \ |
`-----' `--' `--' `--' `--'
lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Brightest fast radio burst ever detected could help solve an enduring
cosmic mystery
By Ashley Strickland, CNN
Updated:
6:26 PM EDT, Tue August 26, 2025
Source: CNN
Astronomers have spotted the brightest fast radio burst yet coming from
a nearby galaxy. Observations of this phenomenon, a powerful flash of
radio waves that lasts only about a millisecond, could shed light on
one of the most mysterious cosmic phenomena ever studied.
Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, were first discovered in 2007, but their
exact sources remain unknown. Since their identification, astronomers
have been tracing the bursts’ origin in the hopes of gathering clues
about what unleashes them and sends them across the cosmos.
Astronomers observed FRB 20250316A, nicknamed “RBFLOAT” for
“Radio Brightest FLash Of All Time,” on March 16.
The signal was traced to the galaxy NGC 4141 about 130 million
light-years away from Earth. The details of the detection, made with
the FRB-hunting Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, or
CHIME, and its newly operational, smaller array of telescopes, called
Outriggers, were published Thursday in .
“With the CHIME Outriggers, we are finally catching these fleeting
cosmic signals in the act — narrowing down their locations not only
to individual galaxies, but even to specific stellar environments,”
said lead study author Amanda Cook, a Banting postdoctoral fellow at
the Trottier Space Institute and Physics Department at McGill
University, in a statement.
After the burst was detected, scientists used the James Webb Space
Telescope to zoom in on where it originated. The observations add
evidence to a leading theory that magnetars, or the highly magnetized
remnants of dead stars, could be a source of fast radio bursts. A study
about Webb’s follow-up observations was also published on Thursday in
.
“This was a unique opportunity to quickly turn JWST’s powerful
infrared eye on the location of an FRB for the first time,” said
Peter Blanchard, lead author of the Webb study and research associate
in the Harvard College Observatory at the Center for Astrophysics |
Harvard & Smithsonian, in a statement. “And we were rewarded with an
exciting result — we see a faint source of infrared light very close
to where the radio burst occurred. This could be the first object
linked to an FRB that anyone has found in another galaxy.”
The new insights from both studies could also be used to help
astronomers solve another key mystery surrounding fast radio bursts by
determining whether they have a , like a cosmic heartbeat, or whether
there are different flavors of radio bursts that release a singular
bombastic signal before falling silent.
A CHIME in the nick of time
The CHIME radio telescope near Penticton, British Columbia, at the
Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, has enabled astronomers for
the past seven years to spot thousands of fast radio bursts when they
arrive at Earth after traveling across the cosmos.
Work was completed earlier this year to get Outriggers up and running
at sites in British Columbia, West Virginia and California with the
goal of tracing fast radio bursts to their specific locations with
enhanced precision. The Outriggers combine pinpointing capabilities
with a large field of view, said Wen-fai Fong, coauthor on the CHIME
study and associate professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern
University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
Astronomers had their chance to test the array’s “game-changing”
capabilities in March, just a couple of months after the Outriggers
came online, Fong said.
The RBFLOAT released as much energy as the sun produced in four days
— but in less than a second.
The Outrigger telescopes enabled the team to pinpoint the fast radio
burst’s point of origin to a region measuring about 45 light-years
across, an area smaller than a cluster of stars. The precision of the
location is like spotting a quarter from about 100 kilometers (62
miles) away, Cook said.
Prior to the Outrigger telescopes’ capability to triangulate a fast
radio burst to its source, “it was like talking to someone on the
phone and not knowing what city or state they were calling from,”
said study coauthor Bryan Gaensler, dean of the University of
California, Santa Cruz science division.
“Now we know not only their exact address, but which room of their
house they’re standing in while they’re on the call.”
Zooming in on a galactic arm
Follow-up observations made with the 6.5-meter MMT telescope in Arizona
and the Keck II telescope’s Cosmic Web Imager in Hawaii revealed that
RBFLOAT came from the spiral arm of a galaxy, which is full of
star-forming regions. But it originated near, and not inside, a
star-forming region.
Some previous fast radio bursts appear to have come from magnetars, or
highly magnetized rotating neutron stars that release radio waves.
Scientists have long hypothesized that neutron stars, ultradense core
remnants left behind after massive stars explode, might be the origin
of fast radio bursts.
Magnetars typically form when gravity triggers a gigantic star to
collapse on itself. And star-forming regions are where young magnetars
can be found.
The fact that the burst was traced to a region outside a star-forming
clump could suggest that the “magnetar was kicked from its birth site
or that it was born right at the FRB site and away from the clump’s
center,” said study coauthor Yuxin (Vic) Dong, graduate student and
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in the department
of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University.
Webb’s powerful gaze
Blanchard’s team used the Webb telescope to search for a signal in
infrared light that may have originated at the same cosmic location as
RBFLOAT.
Webb’s data revealed an object, named NIR-1, which could be a massive
star or a red giant — a sun-like star at the end of its life that has
brightened significantly. Neither star is considered a candidate for
the direct cause of a fast radio burst. But an unseen companion like a
neutron star could be siphoning material away from the larger star —
and that may have been enough to release a burst of radio waves,
Blanchard said.
It’s also possible that the infrared light that Webb detected was a
reflection of a flare caused by the same object that released the radio
burst, such as a magnetar.
“Whether or not the association with the star is real, we’ve
learned a lot about the burst’s origin,” Blanchard said. “If a
double star system isn’t the answer, our work hints that an isolated
magnetar caused the FRB.”
To repeat or not to repeat
Studying the immediate surroundings where both repeating and
non-repeating fast radio bursts occur can help astronomers determine
what causes the signals to repeat in the first place, Fong said.
While many fast radio bursts are known to repeat pulsations over
several months, the RBFLOAT did not release any repeat signals in the
hundreds of hours after it was initially observed.
RBFLOAT is the first non-repeating burst to be localized to such
precision, said Sunil Simha, coauthor on the CHIME study and a Brinson
postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University’s Center for
Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics and the
University of Chicago’s Astronomy and Astrophysics Department.
“Since this represents the first non-repeating FRB with its local
environment fully mapped out, it remains to be seen if others will
follow suit, or if this was an oddball,” Fong said.
The results of both studies provide insight into the question of
whether all fast radio bursts eventually repeat, said Liam Connor,
assistant professor of astronomy at Harvard University. Connor has but
was not involved in either study.
“Before detecting FRB 20250316A, CHIME had been unknowingly
monitoring the source every day for seven years, because CHIME sees the
whole Northern Sky once per day,” Connor wrote in an email.
“Somehow, zero bursts were detected in thousands of transits, until
one of the brightest events of all time suddenly went off. If all FRBs
are repeaters, then clearly some are extremely sporadic and
unpredictable.”
Previously, cataclysmic theories, like the collision of massive
objects, have been ruled out for repeating fast radio bursts since the
source would be destroyed while producing the first burst, Dong said.
“We can reopen the door to those more explosive theories for RBFLOAT
and its kin,” she said.
Simha wants to build a database that shows where fast radio bursts have
originated, which could reveal what may be responsible for creating
them — and if they are all created equally. More data could show if
there are multiple ways to produce fast radio bursts, Blanchard said.
The CHIME telescope and its Outriggers continue monitoring the sky to
see whether other non-repeating fast radio bursts release another
signal. The telescope array is anticipated to help localize hundreds of
fast radio bursts a year. And the team will continue to monitor RBFLOAT
in case it has another outburst.
“Alternatively, maybe we never detect another burst from this source,
and start to see additional seemingly one-off bursts, potentially in
similar environments,” Cook wrote in an email. “Then we’re trying
to solve the mysteries of the origins of at least two different
populations. In either case, we are really excited to uncover the
mysteries the universe has in store for us.”
<- back to index
You are viewing proxied material from codevoid.de. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.