Astronomers Detect Most Distant Fast Radio Burst Yet, Traveling Over 10 Billion Years

The burst, named FRB 20240304B, originated when the universe was only about 3 billion years old, according to a new study published in Science. That means it traveled through approximately 80% of cosmic history, the researchers said. It is believed to be the farthest FRB yet detected, more than double the previous distance record. The scientists detected it using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa and then identified its host galaxy using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

Dr Themiya Nanayakkara of the University of Sydney, one of the lead researchers on the paper, said that when the burst was produced, 'there was no Earth, there was no sun'. Data from the James Webb Space Telescope indicated that the burst originated from a 'young, very small galaxy which is forming stars at a very high speed, with not many metals around it'.

There are several theories about the source of FRBs, including that they come from magnetars, neutron stars with a very powerful magnetic field. Nanayakkara said that whatever mechanism causes the radio burst has to account for the fact that it can be produced in very young galaxies with very low amounts of metals.

More than 10,000 FRBs have been detected since 2007. Some repeat continuously, Nanayakkara said, while some repeat for a while and then stop, and some only go once and are never seen again. Whether the new distant burst is a one-off flash or will yield recurrent signals remains to be seen.

Nanayakkara said that 'the fun thing about FRBs is that we don't need to know what is causing them to do some of the science we are doing now'. This particular burst has been traveling for 80% of the age of the universe, he said, and further detections of distant FRBs would enable scientists to map unseen matter in the distant universe.

Prof Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University, one of the astrophysicists who first discovered FRBs, described the new paper as 'a validation of how powerful the FRBs are for probing the universe'. Bailes described them as 'a very fundamental way of counting how many atoms there are in the universe'. FRBs are affected by the particles they travel through, enabling scientists to quantify matter that cannot be seen through optical telescopes.

Dr Sara Webb, an astrophysicist also at Swinburne University who was not involved in the research, said: 'You can use them essentially as a line-of-sight count for how much matter they had to go through [to get to Earth].' The discovery suggests that 'FRBs might have been very common in the early universe', she added.