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Hubble Finds Weird Home of Farthest Fast Radio Burst


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Hubble Finds Weird Home of Farthest Fast Radio Burst

Black background dotted with galaxies. A square box in the lower-right quadrant of the image denotes a callout that provides an expanded view of that region. The expanded box view (just left of image center) reveals the host galaxy of the Fast Radio Burst.
A NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the host galaxy of an exceptionally powerful fast radio burst, FRB 20220610A. Hubble’s sensitivity and sharpness reveals a compact group of multiple galaxies that may be in the process of merging. They existed when the universe was only 5 billion years old. FRB 20220610A was first detected on June 10, 2022, by the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia. The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile confirmed that the FRB came from a distant place.
NASA, ESA, STScI, Alexa Gordon (Northwestern)

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found a rare event in an oddball place.

It’s called a fast radio burst (FRB), a fleeting blast of energy that can – for a few milliseconds – outshine an entire galaxy. Hundreds of FRBs have been detected over the past few years. They pop off all over the sky like camera flashes at a stadium event, but the sources behind these intense bursts of radiation remain uncertain.

This new FRB is particularly weird because it erupted halfway across the universe, making it the farthest and most powerful example detected to date.

And if that’s not strange enough, it just got weirder based on the follow-up Hubble observations made after its discovery. The FRB flashed in what seems like an unlikely place: a collection of galaxies that existed when the universe was only 5 billion years old. The large majority of previous FRBs have been found in isolated galaxies.

FRB 20220610A was first detected on June 10, 2022, by the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia. The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile confirmed that the FRB came from a distant place. The FRB was four times more energetic than closer FRBs.

“It required Hubble’s keen sharpness and sensitivity to pinpoint exactly where the FRB came from,” said lead author Alexa Gordon of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. “Without Hubble’s imaging, it would still remain a mystery as to whether this was originating from one monolithic galaxy or from some type of interacting system. It’s these types of environments – these weird ones – that are driving us toward better understanding the mystery of FRBs.”

Hubble’s crisp images suggest this FRB originated in an environment where there may be as many as seven galaxies on a possible path to merging, which would also be very significant, researchers say.

“We are ultimately trying to answer the questions: What causes them? What are their progenitors and what are their origins? The Hubble observations provide a spectacular view of the surprising types of environments that give rise to these mysterious events,” said co-investigator Wen-fai Fong, also of Northwestern University.

Though astronomers do not have a consensus on the possible mechanism behind this extraordinary phenomenon, it’s generally thought that FRBs must involve some sort of compact object, like a black hole or neutron star. One extreme type of neutron star is called a magnetar – the most intensely magnetic type of neutron star in the universe. It has a magnetic field that is so strong that, if a magnetar were located halfway between Earth and the Moon, it would erase the magnetic strip on everyone’s credit card in the world. Much worse yet, if an astronaut traveled within a few hundred miles of the magnetar, they would effectively be dissolved, because every atom in their body would be disrupted.

Possible mechanisms involve some kind of jarring starquake, or alternatively, an explosion caused when a magnetar’s twisting magnetic field lines snap and reconnect. A similar phenomenon happens on the Sun, causing solar flares, but a magnetar’s field is a trillion times stronger than the Sun’s magnetosphere. The snapping would generate an FRB’s flash, or might make a shock wave that incinerates surrounding dust and heats gas into a plasma.

There could be several flavors of magnetars. In one case, it could be an exploding object orbiting a black hole surrounded by a disk of material. Another alternative is a pair of orbiting neutron stars whose magnetospheres periodically interact, creating a cavity where eruptions can take place. It’s estimated that magnetars are active for about 10,000 years before settling down, so they would be expected to be found where a firestorm of star birth is taking place. But this doesn’t seem to be the case for all magnetars.

In the near future, FRB experiments will increase their sensitivity, leading to an unprecedented rate in the number of FRBs detected at these distances. Hubble will play a crucial role in characterizing the environments in which these FRBs occur. Astronomers will soon learn just how special the environment of this FRB was.

“We just need to keep finding more of these FRBs, both nearby and far away, and in all these different types of environments,” said Gordon.

The results are being presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble and Webb science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.

Media Contact:

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterGreenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD

Science Contact:

Alexa Gordon
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

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Last Updated
Jan 09, 2024
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Andrea Gianopoulos

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      For comparison, there is a nearby star, Fomalhaut, which is about the same distance, age and temperature as Vega. But Fomalhaut’s circumstellar architecture is greatly different from Vega’s. Fomalhaut has three nested debris belts.
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      In 2005, NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope mapped out a ring of dust around Vega. This was further confirmed by observations using submillimeter telescopes including Caltech’s Submillimeter Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and also the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, and ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Herschel Space Telescope, but none of these telescopes could see much detail. “The Hubble and Webb observations together provide so much more detail that they are telling us something completely new about the Vega system that nobody knew before,” said Rieke.
      Two papers (Wolff et al. and Su et. al.) from the Arizona team will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.
      The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
      The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, Colorado, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
      Explore More:

      Finding Planetary Construction Zones


      The science paper by Schuyler Wolff et al., PDF (3.24 MB)


      The science paper by Kate Su et al., PDF (2.10 MB)

      Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Facebook logo @NASAWebb @NASAWebb Instagram logo @NASAWebb Media Contacts:
      Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov), Laura Betz (laura.e.betz@nasa.gov)
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
      Ray Villard, Christine Pulliam
      Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
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      Last Updated Nov 01, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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