Astronomers Detect Mysterious Radio Signal That Traveled 8 Million Light-Years to Earth

Astronomers detected a mysterious and fast radio signal that is believed to have traveled 8 billion light-years across the universe to planet Earth.

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are intense, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves that come from unknown sources. Astronomers discovered the first FRB in 2007 and have since found hundreds of these quick, cosmic flashes coming from distant points across space.

Mysterious Fast Radio Burst

The recently discovered radio wave burst is named FRB 20220610A and was found to have lasted less than a millisecond. However, in that short span of time, it was able to release the equivalent of our sun's energetic emissions over the course of three decades.

There are many FRBs that release super bright radio waves that last only a few milliseconds at most before disappearing and this is what makes fast radio bursts difficult to observe. Astronomers used radio telescopes to trace these quick cosmic flashes, including the ASKAP array of radio telescopes that are located in Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia, as per CNN.

Dr. Stuart Ryder, an astronomer at Macquarie University in Australia and a co-author of the study about the latest FRB, said that they used ASKAP's array of radio dishes to determine where the burst came from. He added that they then used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile to search for the burst's source galaxy.

The astronomers were able to determine that the FRB's source was older and farther away than any other burst source found to date and is likely within a small group of merging galaxies. The research team was able to trace the FRB to what appeared to be a group of two or three galaxies that were still in the process of merging, interacting, and forming new stars.

The discovery aligns with current theories that suggest FRBs come from magnetars, which are highly energetic objects that are created when stars explode. Scientists also believe that FRBs may be a unique method that can be used to "weigh" the universe by measuring the matter between galaxies that remains unaccounted for.

Traveling 8 Million Light-Years

The astronomers' study that involved the latest FRB sighting was published in the journal Science. The author, Ryan Shannon, said that these events are not observed to repeat. This is why experts need to be quick to respond to understand what they are and where they come from, according to Newsweek.

Shannon noted that experts use FRBs as tools because they are imprinted with the signature of all of the gas that they travel through. This makes them incredibly useful for probing the tenuous gas that exists between galaxies.

The finding could help astronomers in their efforts to determine the missing matter in the universe that should be present. These are believed to be "ordinary" and are made up of atoms that are composed of protons and neutrons, particles called baryons.

Scientists have missed detection of this missing matter for decades even with the use of the largest and most sophisticated telescopes. But recent theories suggest that this matter could exist in the vast void of space between some galaxies, said Space.