The Most Distant Burst of Cosmic Radio Waves: Fast Radio Burst Discovered in Less than a Millisecond

Astronomers discovered the most distant burst of cosmic radio waves occurred in less than a millisecond!

We know this explosion by name Fast Radio Burst (FRB) or Fast Radio Burst because it takes place very quickly, only in the range of one millisecond to three seconds!

Illustration of the Fast Radio Burst FRB 20220610A from a distant galaxy. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Burst from a Distant Galaxy

These Fast Radio Bursts can come from all directions. Interestingly, astronomers estimate that in one day, at least 10,000 FRBs occur at random points in the sky that we should be able to see. However, the FRB happened very quickly. Even less than a second. As a result, when the energy arrives on Earth, the previously extraordinarily bright and energetic FRB is already 1000 times weaker than a cell phone signal if it were emitted from the Moon and captured on Earth. Because the signal is weak and very short, it is difficult for us to detect FRB.

The first Fast Radio Burst was discovered in 2007 and to date more than 1000 FRBs have been discovered. The most distant Fast Radio Burst is FRB 20220610A which was discovered in June 2022 with the ASKAP radio telescope in Australia. What’s interesting about this finding is the distance. FRB 20220610A is the farthest fast radio burst discovered to date. Radio waves from FRB 20220610A took at least 8 billion years to arrive on Earth.

Not only that. Even though the bursts are very short, less than 1 millisecond, they are very energetic. The bursts emitted are equivalent to the total emissions of the Sun for more than 30 years!

Observations with the ASKAP radio telescope provide the direction and location of the radio burst. After finding out its location, astronomers made observations with the ESO VLT telescope in Chile to look for the galaxy that was the source of the fast radio burst. And as a result, astronomers found that this FRB came from an old galaxy that was farther away than other FRB sources.

However, in general the source of the FRB itself is still mysterious. There are suggestions that the radio bursts came from stars white dwarf and bintang neutronespecially magnetar, also from galactic collisions. Well, it seems that the source of FRB 20220610A could have come from a galaxy collision because the observations indicate that the source of the radio burst came from a group of galaxies that were merging or merging.

Missing material

The discovery of this FRB is important for mapping the Universe. When high-energy radio bursts cross the Universe, these radio waves also collect information regarding the cosmic environment in which they pass. For example, about passing interstellar gas clouds.

Apart from that, this FRB is also important for measuring lost intergalactic material. In short, this is a new way to measure the “weight” of the Universe. This is because the methods used to estimate the mass of the Universe currently still provide answers that contradict the standard cosmological model.

If we only count normal matter or the atoms that make us up, then more than half of the amount of matter that should exist in the Universe is actually missing. Well, astronomers suspect that the missing material is hidden in intergalactic space. According to astronomers, the missing material is not visible with normal observation techniques because it is very hot and spread out in intergalactic space.

FRB can detect ionized material. Even in a nearly empty area, the FRB can still find out all the electrons. In this way, astronomers can calculate how much matter there is in intergalactic space. Especially if what is found is an FRB that is located very far away.

The further away the FRB is found, the more gas is scattered in intergalactic space about which information can be obtained.

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