2023-10-24 17:00:04
This artist’s impression (which is not to scale) illustrates the trajectory of the fast radio burst FRB 20220610A, from the distant galaxy where it originated to the Earth, in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. The source galaxy of FRB 20220610A, located using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, appears to be located in a small group of interacting galaxies. It is so distant that its light took 8 billion years to reach us, making FRB 20220610A the most distant fast radio burst discovered to date. ESO/M. KORNMESSER
It’s hard to imagine that an explosion of radio waves lasting a few milliseconds releases as much energy as the Sun emits in thirty years. Yet it is such a rapid radio burst (in English « fast radio burst » or FRB) which was detected on June 10, 2022 by the giant Australian radio telescope Askap. The international team of researchers led by astronomer Stuart Ryder of Macquarie University (Australia) first determined the location of this radio source before using the eyes of the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) from Chile to try to find out a little more.
The results of this research, published in the journal Science from October 20, show that the source of this radio burst is older and more distant than any that have been observed since this phenomenon was first identified in 2007. FRB 20220610A, that’s its name, comes from a small group of galaxies in the process of merging located 8 billion light years away. The previous record, a burst some 5 billion years old, is shattered.
Beyond this record that scientific journals are fond of, such measurements are of great interest to astrophysicists, because these radio waves, while crossing the Universe, interact with matter that no instrument sees or even detects.
Missing material
“If we count the amount of normal matter in the Universe – the atoms we are all made of – we find that more than half of what should be there today is missing.explains Professor Ryan Shannon (Swinburne University of Technology, Australia), co-signatory of the study, in Macquarie University press release. We think the missing matter is hiding in the space between galaxies, but it may be so hot and diffuse that it’s impossible to see with usual techniques. Fast radio bursts detect this ionized material. Even in almost perfectly empty space, they can “see” all the electrons, allowing us to measure how much matter is between galaxies. »
It was another Australian, astronomer Jean-Pierre Macquart, who demonstrated in 2020 that FRBs might make it possible to precisely measure the missing matter in the Universe. “The farther away a fast radio burst is, the more diffuse gas it reveals between galaxies. This is what we call today the Macquart relation.summarizes Stuart Ryder, first signatory of the study, in the ESO press release.
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