Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have found a fast radio burst. What’s weird about this is they found it erupted halfway across the universe, making it the farthest and most powerful ever detected.
The fast radio burst (FRB) also got even weirder based on the follow up Hubble observations. The FRB flashed in what seems like a strange place: a collection of galaxies that existed when the universe was only 5 billion years old. Normally, astronomers find these in isolated galaxies.
The FRB is being called FRB 20220610A, and it was first detected by the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope. After that, the European Southern Obsevatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile confirmed it came from a distant place.
The images taken by Hubble suggest the FRB originated in an environment where there may be up to seven galaxies on a path to merging. While astronomers don’t really understand these, it’s thought that FRBs must invove some sort object, like a black hole or neutron star.
