Astronomers Spot Brightest Ever Fast Radio Burst
- Editor OGN Daily
- Aug 29
- 1 min read
Not just that, scientists were also able to pinpoint the location of the fleeting phenomenon with unprecedented accuracy.
In March, astronomers detected a quick, powerful burst of radio energy that lit up in the sky for only a fraction of a second. The burst was dubbed RBFLOAT: the “Radio Brightest FLash Of All Time” and an international team of scientists has determined its origin with remarkable speed and accuracy, thanks to using multiple telescopes that comprise the CHIME array.
They traced the origin of this burst to the edge of a star-forming region in a spiral galaxy called NGC 4141, located about 130 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. That makes it one of the closest FRBs ever detected.
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are massive flashes of radio waves that last just a few milliseconds. That makes them hard for scientists to study, since they disappear so quickly and are usually one-offs. Very few of them repeat. But now, scientists have been able to gain a little more insight into this mysterious phenomenon. Their findings are published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Scientists still don’t know what causes FRBs. A leading theory is that they’re related to magnetars, or highly magnetic neutron stars left over from supernova explosions. While scientists still have a lot to discover about FRBs, it’s clear that these powerful space telescopes can help them learn more in future work.
