Astronomers trace the origin of a mysterious radio signal from space – El Sol de Puebla

Astronomy scientists They would have found a source One of the most powerful and far-reaching fast radio bursts ever detected on Earth When you find a very strange combination of Galaxies.

In this regard, the fast radio burst is given the name FRB 20220610A And he went It was first discovered in June 2022. It is now known that It came from a group of at least seven galaxiesa very strange, united group They could all fit inside the Milky Way.

During the 243rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society These results were announced, which were conducted in New Orleans, United States, and were obtained using With the help of the Hubble Space Telescope.

In the first place, the observations led to Discovery of a giant celestial spotwhich he thought One irregular galaxy or at least a group of three galaxies that interacted with each other.

After I found out it was Seven galaxiesThe hypothesis now is that It could be in the process of fusionSo in this process it ended up being a fast radio burst.

“Without Hubble images, it would remain a mystery whether these fast radio bursts originated in a homogeneous galaxy or in some kind of interacting system… It is these kinds of environments, these exotic environments, that are pushing us toward a better understanding of the mystery of the universe.” “The FRB,” said Alexa Gordon, a doctoral student in astronomy in Northwestern University's College of Arts and Sciences and the Weinberg College, and lead author of the study.

It is expected that as these galaxies continue to interact, this may happen It leads to a greater number of bursts of star formation similar to those that have been detected. We are Fast radio bursts They are found not only in galaxy clusters, but also in… Spherical clusters.

“Although there have been hundreds of FRB events detected so far, only a fraction of them have been identified with their host galaxies. Within this small fraction, only a few came from the dense galactic environment, but none have ever been seen in space.” “So, its birthplace is really rare,” explained Yuexin Fic Dong, a graduate researcher at the National Science Foundation and a doctoral student in astronomy in Fung's lab at Northwestern University and co-author of the study.

The first time this radio signal was detected

there was June 2020 when an international team detected a wave of cosmic radio waves also Fast radio blast (FRB Through its abbreviation in English) which is classified as The furthest that has ever been discovered.

This was revealed by ASKAP radio telescope located in Australia A. was 50% further away than the largest FRB ever discovered. Similarly, Its duration was less than one millisecond And he thought so It came from a galaxy far away whose light took eight billion years to reach Earth.

Detection of this type of source is used for Measuring the “missing” matter between galaxies in the universeso submit A new way to study it.

“If we count the amount of ordinary matter in the universe (the atoms of which we are composed), we find that more than half of what should be present today is missing… and we believe that the missing matter is hidden in space,” said Ryan Shannon, a professor at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia. It is intergalactic, but it may be so hot and widespread that it is impossible to see with ordinary techniques.

from Rapid detection of radio explosions It is called by name FRB 20220610A The devices that should be used to reveal its origin have been thought of as the cause that caused it, despite the idea of ​​its existence A massive explosion of energyWhere they ended up uniting Seven galaxies.