The most powerful rapid radio has ever detected telescopes across North America

For almost two decades, astronomers detected extremely powerful and long -known radio waves flashes of long known radio (FRBS) beyond our galaxy – and had no idea where they came from. Now, a team of scientists has detected the brightest FRB and finally identified its origin from a neighboring galaxy.

Researchers have long suspected that FRB are the result of very energetic and violent events, such as clashes between neutron stars. But even if they can generate more energy in a burst than our sun published it in a year, they left in less time than it takes to blink. Due to their transient nature, astronomers have not been able to locate exactly where they are from so far.

“We detects a lot of FRB, but we only had coarse information on the place where they were performing in the sky,” said Bryan Gaensler, co-author of the study and dean of the scientific division of the UC Santa Cruz. “It was like talking to someone on the phone and not knowing which city or state he called.”

To which he added: “Now we know not only their exact address, but which room in their house in which they stand during the call.”

The brightness of the Rafale and its proximity give researchers new clues not only at the origin of the flash, but also to what caused it. The results were published in Astrophysical newspaper letters.

The fast radio goat bursts

Astronomers have detected this exceptionally brilliant FRB, officially called FRB 20250316A, in March from the management of the Grande Dipper using the Carillon radio-telescope in British Columbia. They refer to the flash like “RBFLOAT” for “the most brilliant flash of all time”. Flash has produced more energy in a few milliseconds than our sun does not produce in four days.

Astronomers have identified the flash thanks to the Canadian experience of cartography of the hydrogen intensity (chime), a large radiotelescope in British Columbia, and its newly completed “outrigger” telescope network, which extends over North America in British Columbia to Virginia-Western. This vast network, which was put online a few months ago, is sensitive enough to detect ultra-rapid and brilliant radio flashes.

While many FRB repeat themselves, pulsating several times over several months, Rbfloat has expressed all its energy in a single burst. In hundreds of hours after the observation for the first time, astronomers did not detect another flow of the source.

Astronomers have drawn the burst in a region at only 45 light years in diameter – more malon than the average star cluster – on the outskirts of a galaxy at around 130 million light years. RBFLOAT occurred along a spiral arm of this galaxy, which is dotted with many regions of star formation. The burst is coming from closely, but not inside, one of these regions, according to the study.

“It is remarkable that only a few months after the complete stabilization table was released online, we discovered an extremely brilliant FRB in a galaxy in our own cosmic district,” said Wen-Fai Fong, the main study and professor of physics and astronomy at the Northwestern University, in a press release.

Solve the cosmic mystery

Then, using data from the Keck Cosmic web imaging, a spectrographic instrument on the Keck II 10 meter telescope in Hawai’i, the researchers were able to study the surroundings of RBFLOAT. This included the physical properties of the gas environment from the origin of the FRB, including the star production rate in the galaxy, the total quantity of gases present at any place in the galaxy and its density.

But it is always a mystery that exactly caused the flash. The team suspects that it was produced by a magnetar – a highly magnetized neutron star left behind a supernova.

“Spiral arms are generally stars training sites in progress, which supports the idea that it came from a magnetar. Using our extremely sensitive MMT image, we were able to zoom in more and found that the FRB is in fact outside the nearest star formation tuft. This place is intriguing because we expect it to be located in the Clump, where the training of the star takes place “, in the northwest graduate student Yuxin” vic “Dong and studies in the northwest graduate student Yuxin” vic “Dong and studies in the northwest graduate student yuxin” vic “Dong and study in the north-west graduate” vic ” Study in the North-Declaration.

“This could suggest that the magnetar of the offspring was launched from its birth site or that it was just born on the FRB site and far from the center of the Toump,” added Dong.

With the stabilizers of the carillon now, astronomers expect to identify more FRB each year, which may bring us closer to the understanding of their origins.

“This result marks a turning point,” said the author of Amanda Cook, a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University, in a press release. “Instead of simply detecting these mysterious flashes, we can now see exactly where they come from. It opens the door to discover if they are caused by dying stars, exotic magnetic objects or something what we have not even thought about.”