Scientists trace powerful radio signal to most distant galaxy yet Premium

In a new research, scientists have found the most distant fast radio burst ever detected: an 8-billion-year-old pulse that has been travelling for more than half the lifetime of the universe.

Every day and night, hundreds of thousands of intense, brief flashes of radiation suddenly flicker on and then off all across the sky. These “fast radio bursts” are invisible to the naked eye, but to a radio telescope many almost outshine everything else in the sky for a few thousandths of a second.

Since the first such burst was spotted in 2006, we have found that nearly all of them come from distant galaxies. Most bursts pass unnoticed, occurring outside the field of view of radio telescopes, and never occur again.

In new research published in Science, we have found the most distant fast radio burst ever detected: an 8-billion-year-old pulse that has been travelling for more than half the lifetime of the universe.

Astronomers are fascinated by fast radio bursts for two reasons.

The first is that their cause is unknown. The bursts are a trillion times more energetic than the things that look most like them: rotating neutron stars called pulsars, in our own galaxy.

The second reason is that the bursts provide a new tool to study other aspects of the cosmos.

Fast radio bursts let us study the “cosmic web” of matter floating in the space between galaxies. This matter is very hot, diffuse gas and almost invisible, but it subtly slows down fast radio bursts as they pass through it. (This is ordinary matter, the same kind that makes up stars, planets and humans, not the invisible “dark matter” that also lurks throughout the universe.)