A fast radio burst event called FRB 20220610A flashed in what seems like an unlikely place: a collection of at least seven galaxies that existed when the Universe was only 5 billion years old. The large majority of previous fast radio bursts have been found in isolated galaxies.
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This Hubble image shows the host galaxy of the exceptionally powerful fast radio burst FRB 20220610A. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / Alexa Gordon, Northwestern University.
FRB 20220610A was first detected on June 10, 2022, by the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia.
ESO’s Very Large Telescope confirmed that the FRB came from a distant place. The FRB was four times more energetic than closer FRBs.
“It required Hubble’s keen sharpness and sensitivity to pinpoint exactly where the FRB came from,” said Dr. Alexa Gordon, an astronomer at Northwestern University.
“Without Hubble’s imaging, it would still remain a mystery as to whether this was originating from one monolithic galaxy or from some type of interacting system.”
“It’s these types of environments — these weird ones — that are driving us toward better understanding the mystery of FRBs.”
Hubble’s crisp images suggest FRB 20220610A originated in an environment where there may be as many as seven galaxies on a possible path to merging, which would also be very significant.
“We are ultimately trying to answer the questions: What causes them? What are their progenitors and what are their origins?” said Northwestern University astronomer Wen-fai Fong.
“The Hubble observations provide a spectacular view of the surprising types of environments that give rise to these mysterious events.”
Despite hundreds of detected FRBs, their progenitors are uncertain; one leading candidate is magnetars.
They have a magnetic field that is so strong that, if a magnetar was located halfway between Earth and the Moon, it would erase the magnetic strip on everyone’s credit card in the world.
Much worse yet, if an astronaut traveled within a few hundred miles of the magnetar, they would effectively be dissolved, because every atom in their body would be disrupted.
Possible mechanisms involve some kind of jarring starquake, or alternatively, an explosion caused when a magnetar’s twisting magnetic field lines snap and reconnect.
A similar phenomenon happens on the Sun, causing solar flares, but a magnetar’s field is a trillion times stronger than the Sun’s magnetosphere.
The snapping would generate an FRB’s flash, or might make a shock wave that incinerates surrounding dust and heats gas into plasma.
There could be several flavors of magnetars. In one case, it could be an exploding object orbiting a black hole surrounded by a disk of material.
Another alternative is a pair of orbiting neutron stars whose magnetospheres periodically interact, creating a cavity where eruptions can take place.
It’s estimated that magnetars are active for about 10,000 years before settling down, so they would be expected to be found where a firestorm of star birth is taking place. But this doesn’t seem to be the case for all magnetars.
In the near future, FRB experiments will increase their sensitivity, leading to an unprecedented rate in the number of FRBs detected at these distances.
“We just need to keep finding more of these FRBs, both nearby and far away, and in all these different types of environments,” Dr. Gordon said.
The astronomers presented the findings at AAS243, the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans, Louisiana, the United States.
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Alexa Gordon et al. 2024. Revealing the Environment of the Most Distant FRB with the Hubble Space Telescope. AAS243, abstract #3679
