{"id":45839,"date":"2025-09-05T19:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T19:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45839\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T19:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T19:04:10","slug":"astronomers-track-record-breaking-radio-flash-across-130-million-light-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45839\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers Track Record-Breaking Radio Flash Across 130 Million Light-Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"CHIME<\/a>Artistic interpretation of CHIME\u2019s Outrigger array over North America localizing RBFLOAT to its host galaxy. Credit: Dani\u00eblle Futselaar\/MMT Observatory<\/p>\n

A team of astronomers spotted RBFLOAT, one of the brightest fast radio bursts ever seen, and traced it to a galaxy 130 million light-years away.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Using CHIME\u2019s new Outrigger array, researchers pinpointed its origin to a spiral arm near a star-forming region, strengthening the case for magnetars as the source of these mysterious blasts.<\/p>\n

One of the Brightest FRBs Ever Detected<\/p>\n

An international group of researchers, including astrophysicists from Northwestern University, has identified one of the brightest fast radio bursts (FRBs) ever seen and determined its origin with a level of accuracy never achieved before.<\/p>\n

The flash lasted only a fraction of a second and has been given the nickname RBFLOAT (short for \u201cradio-brightest flash of all time\u201d and, yes, a nod to \u201croot beer float\u201d). It was detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) together with its newly completed \u201cOutrigger\u201d array. By coordinating measurements from stations in British Columbia, West Virginia, and California, the team traced the burst to a specific spiral arm of a galaxy located 130 million light-years away, with an astonishing precision of just 42 light-years.<\/p>\n

FRBs are notoriously difficult to study because they disappear almost instantly and occur at immense distances. When astronomers are able to pin down the exact location of one, they can examine its surroundings in detail, learning about the host galaxy, its distance from Earth, and possible causes of the burst. Over time, these insights may help scientists uncover the true origins of these brief but powerful events.<\/p>\n

Details of the discovery were published on August 21 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. This marks the first time the fully operational Outrigger array has been used to determine the position of an FRB.<\/p>\n

\"RBFLOAT<\/a>Location of RBFLOAT next to its host galaxy. Credit: Yuxin \u201cVic\u201d Dong\/MMT
\nA Turning Point in FRB Science<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is remarkable that only a couple of months after the full Outrigger array went online, we discovered an extremely bright FRB in a galaxy in our own cosmic neighborhood,\u201d said Northwestern\u2019s Wen-fai Fong, a senior author on the study. \u201cThis bodes very well for the future. An increase in event rates always provides the opportunity for discovering more rare events. The CHIME\/FRB collaboration worked for many years toward this technical achievement, and the universe rewarded us with an absolute gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis result marks a turning point,\u201d said corresponding author Amanda Cook, a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University. \u201cInstead of just detecting these mysterious flashes, we can now see exactly where they are coming from. It opens the door for discovering whether they are caused by dying stars, exotic magnetic objects or something we haven\u2019t even thought of yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fong, who specializes in studying cosmic explosions, is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern\u2019s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. She is also part of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and the NSF-Simons AI Institute for the Sky (SkAI Institute).<\/p>\n

Four Days of Solar Energy in a Blink<\/p>\n

Flaring up and disappearing within milliseconds, FRBs are brief, powerful radio blasts that generate more energy in one quick burst than our sun emits in an entire year. While most pass unnoticed, every once in a while, an FRB is bright enough to detect. FRB20250316A, or RBFLOAT, was one of these rare events. Detected in March 2025, RBFLOAT released as much energy in a few milliseconds as the sun produces in four days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so bright that our pipeline initially flagged it as radio frequency interference, signals often caused by cell phones or airplanes that are much closer to home,\u201d Fong said. \u201cIt took some sleuthing by members of our collaboration to uncover that it was a real astrophysical signal.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while many FRBs repeat \u2014 pulsing multiple times across several months \u2014 RBFLOAT emitted all its energy in just one burst. Even in the hundreds of hours after it was first observed, astronomers did not detect repeat bursts from the source. That means astrophysicists couldn\u2019t wait for another flare to gather more data. Instead, they only had one shot at pinpointing its location.<\/p>\n

\u201cRBFLOAT was the first non-repeating source localized to such precision,\u201d said Northwestern\u2019s Sunil Simha, a postdoctoral scholar at CIERA and study co-author. \u201cThese are much harder to locate. Thus, even detecting RBFLOAT is proof of concept that CHIME is indeed capable of detecting such events and building a statistically interesting sample of FRBs.\u201d<\/p>\n

FRB Forensics Point Toward a Magnetar<\/p>\n

To investigate RBFLOAT\u2019s origin, the scientists relied on CHIME, a large radio telescope in British Columbia and the world\u2019s most prolific FRB hunter. Smaller versions of CHIME, the Outriggers enable astronomers to triangulate signals to precisely confine the specific locations of FRBs on the sky.<\/p>\n

With this array of vantage points, the team traced the burst to the Big Dipper constellation in the outskirts of a galaxy about 130 million light-years away from Earth. The team precisely pinpointed it to a region just 45 light-years across, which is smaller than an average star cluster.<\/p>\n

Follow-up observations from the 6.5-meter MMT telescope in Arizona and the Keck Cosmic Web Imager on the 10-meter Keck II Telescope in Hawai\u2018i provided the most detailed view yet of a non-repeating FRB\u2019s surroundings. Simha analyzed the optical data obtained from Keck, and Northwestern graduate student Yuxin \u201cVic\u201d Dong used the MMT to obtain deep optical images of the FRB\u2019s host galaxy.<\/p>\n

Their investigations revealed the burst occurred along a spiral arm of the galaxy, which is dotted with many star-forming regions. The RBFLOAT occurred near, but not inside, one of these star-forming regions. Although astrophysicists still don\u2019t know exactly what causes FRBs, this evidence bolsters one leading hypothesis. At least some appear to come from magnetars, ultra-magnetized neutron stars born from the deaths of massive stars. Star-forming regions often host young magnetars, which are energetic enough to produce quick, powerful bursts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found the FRB lies at the outskirts of a star-forming region that hosts massive stars,\u201d Simha said. \u201cFor the first time, we could even estimate how deeply it\u2019s embedded in surrounding gas, and it\u2019s relatively shallow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keck\u2019s rich dataset and FRB\u2019s precise location enabled the team to perform first-of-its-kind analysis of the galaxy\u2019s properties at the FRB\u2019s location. These uncovered characteristics include the density of the galaxy\u2019s gas, star-formation rate, and presence of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe FRB lies on a spiral arm of its host galaxy,\u201d added Dong, who is the principal investigator of the MMT program. \u201cSpiral arms are typically sites of ongoing star formation, which supports the idea that it came from a magnetar. Using our extremely sensitive MMT image, we were able to zoom in further and found that the FRB is actually outside the nearest star-forming clump. This location is intriguing because we would expect it to be located within the clump, where star formation is happening. This could suggest that the progenitor magnetar was kicked from its birth site or that it was born right at the FRB site and away from the clump\u2019s center.\u201d<\/p>\n

A New Era of Discovery<\/p>\n

With the CHIME Outriggers now fully running, astronomers expect to pin down hundreds more FRBs each year \u2014 bringing them closer than ever to solving the mystery of what causes these spectacular flashes. The localization power of the Outriggers, combined with CHIME\u2019s wide field of view, marks a turning point for the FRB search.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years, we\u2019ve known FRBs occur all over the sky, but pinning them down has been painstakingly slow,\u201d Dong said. \u201cNow, we can routinely tie them to specific galaxies, even down to neighborhoods within those galaxies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entire FRB community has only published about 100 well-localized events in the past eight years,\u201d Simha said. \u201cNow, we expect more than 200 precise detections per year from CHIME alone. RBFLOAT was a spectacular source to begin building such a sample.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to the CHIME Outriggers, we\u2019re now entering a new era of FRB science,\u201d said study co-author Tarraneh Eftekhari, who is CIERA\u2019s assistant director. \u201cWith hundreds of precisely localized events expected in the next few years, we can start to understand the full breadth of environments from which these mysterious signals emanate, bringing us one step closer to unlocking their secrets. RBFLOAT is just the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Explore Further: Brightest Radio Flash Ever Detected Lights Up Nearby Galaxy<\/a><\/p>\n

Reference: \u201cFRB 20250316A: A Brilliant and Nearby One-off Fast Radio Burst Localized to 13 pc Precision\u201d by Thomas C. Abbott, Daniel Amouyal, Bridget C. Andersen, Shion E. Andrew, Kevin Bandura, Mohit Bhardwaj, Kalyani Bhopi, Yash Bhusare, Charanjot Brar, Alice Cai, Tomas Cassanelli, Shami Chatterjee, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Cliche, Amanda M. Cook, Alice P. Curtin, Evan Davies-Velie, Matt Dobbs, Fengqiu Adam Dong, Yuxin Dong, Gwendolyn Eadie, Tarraneh Eftekhari, Wen-fai Fong, Emmanuel Fonseca, B. M. Gaensler, Nina Gusinskaia, Jason W. T. Hessels, Dant\u00e9 M. Hewitt, Jeff Huang, Naman Jain, Ronniy. C. Joseph, Lordrick Kahinga, Victoria M. Kaspi, Afrasiyab (Afrokk) Khan, Bikash Kharel, Adam E. Lanman, Magnus L\u2019Argent, Mattias Lazda, Calvin Leung, Robert Main, Lluis Mas-Ribas, Kiyoshi W. Masui, Kyle McGregor, Ryan Mckinven, Juan Mena-Parra, Daniele Michilli, Nicole Mulyk, Mason Ng, Kenzie Nimmo, Ayush Pandhi, Swarali Shivraj Patil, Aaron B. Pearlman, Ue-Li Pen, Ziggy Pleunis, J. Xavier Prochaska, Masoud Rafiei-Ravandi, Scott M. Ransom, Gurman Sachdeva, Mawson W. Sammons, Ketan R. Sand, Paul Scholz, Vishwangi Shah, Kaitlyn Shin, Seth R. Siegel, Sunil Simha, Kendrick Smith, Ingrid Stairs, David C. Stenning, Haochen Wang, Thomas Boles, Isma\u00ebl Cognard, Tammo Jan Dijkema, Alexei V. Filippenko, Marcin P. Gawro\u0144ski, Wolfgang Herrmann, Charles D. Kilpatrick, Franz Kirsten, Shawn Knabel, Omar S. Ould-Boukattine, Hadrien Paugnat, Weronika Puchalska, William Sheu, Aswin Suresh, Aaron Tohuvavohu, Tommaso Treu and WeiKang Zheng, 21 August 2025, The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
DOI: 10.3847\/2041-8213\/adf62f<\/a><\/p>\n

The study was supported by the National Science Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Research Corporation of Science Advancement, the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Trottier Space Institute at McGill. The CHIME collaboration includes astrophysicists from Northwestern, McGill University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, and several other institutions.<\/p>\n

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