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Astronomers have tracked one of the most powerful, distant, and fast radio bursts ever detected to the unusual “clump-like” group of galaxies that is home to the extraordinary universe. The unexpected discovery could shed more light on the causes of mysterious radio bursts that have puzzled scientists for years.
The powerful signal, named FRB 20220610A, was first detected on June 10, 2022, and traveled 8 billion light years to reach Earth. One light year is the distance that light travels in one year, or 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers).
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are powerful, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves of unknown origin. The first FRB he discovered in 2007, and since then hundreds of rapid cosmic flashes have been detected coming from distant points in space.
This particular fast radio burst lasted less than 1 millisecond, but was four times more energetic than previously detected FRBs. According to one report, the explosion released the equivalent of 30 years of solar energy radiation. First study published in October.
Many FRBs are difficult to observe because they emit extremely bright radio waves that last only a few milliseconds at most before disappearing.
Radio telescopes have proven useful in tracking the paths of fast cosmic flashes, so researchers set up the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia and the European The Southern Astronomical Observatory’s Very Large Telescope was used to determine where the mysterious outburst occurred. .
This observation led scientists to a huge celestial mass. Initially, it was thought to be a single irregular galaxy, or a group of three interacting galaxies.
Now, using images from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers show that this fast radio burst came from a group of at least seven galaxies so close to each other that they all fit within the Milky Way. .
The findings were presented Tuesday at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans.
The galaxies in this group appear to be interacting and may even be in the process of merging, which could have triggered the fast radio bursts, the researchers said.
“Without the Hubble images, it will remain a mystery whether this FRB arose from one monolithic galaxy or from some kind of interacting system,” said study lead author and Northwestern University Professor of Wines. said Alexa Gordon, an astronomy doctoral student at Berg College of the Arts. Sciences said in a statement.
“It’s environments like this, strange environments, that drive us to a deeper understanding of the Fed’s mysteries.”
This group of galaxies, known as the Compact Galaxy Group, is exceptional and is an example of “the densest galaxy-scale structure we know of,” said study co-author and associate professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University. said Wen-Fai Fung, a professor and Gordon’s advisor.
When galaxies interact, they can trigger bursts of star formation, which could be linked to the bursts, Gordon said.
Fast radio bursts are primarily traced back to isolated galaxies, but astronomers have also found them in globular clusters, which are now compact clusters, Gordon said.
“We need to continue finding more of these FRBs in different types of environments, both near and far,” she says.
Nearly 1,000 fast radio bursts have been detected since their first discovery about 20 years ago, but astronomers remain unsure of what causes them.
But many agree that compact objects such as black holes or neutron stars, the dense remnants of exploding stars, are likely involved. Recent research suggests that magnetars, or highly magnetized stars, may be the root cause of fast radio bursts.
Understanding where fast radio bursts come from could help astronomers further understand the underlying causes of sending fast radio bursts throughout the universe.
“Despite hundreds of FRB events discovered so far, only a small fraction of them have been identified to the host galaxy,” study co-author Yuxin Vic Dong said in a statement. “Of that small fraction, only a small fraction came from a dense galactic environment, but never before have they been found in such a compact group. So their birthplace is truly unusual. ” Dong is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and a doctoral student in astronomy in Fong’s lab at Northwestern University.
Further insights into fast radio bursts could also lead to insights into the nature of the universe. As the burst travels through space over billions of years, it interacts with cosmic matter.
“Radio waves in particular are sensitive to any intervening material along the line of sight from the Fed’s location to us,” Fong said. “That means the wave has to travel through the cloud of material around the FRB site, through its host galaxy, across the universe, and finally through the Milky Way.” , we can measure the sum of all these contributions.”
In the future, astronomers are looking forward to increasingly sensitive methods for detecting fast radio bursts, which could potentially allow them to find more of them at greater distances, Gordon said. said.
“We’re ultimately trying to answer the question: What causes these events? What are their ancestry and their origins? Hubble observations reveal the surprising types that cause these mysterious events. It provides a great view of the environment,” Fung said.