Scientists detected a fast radio burst named FRB 20240304B that travelled about 10 billion years before reaching Earth

Scientists detected a fast radio burst named FRB 20240304B that travelled about 10 billion years before reaching Earth

¨     Scientists detected a fast radio burst named FRB 20240304B that travelled about 10 billion years before reaching Earth.

¨     The signal was first observed on 4 March 2024 by the MeerKAT Radio Telescope in South Africa.

¨     Researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope to identify its host galaxy.

¨     The host galaxy is a small, clumpy, low-mass, star-forming dwarf galaxy.

¨     Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are brief and intense pulses of radio waves originating from distant cosmic sources.

¨     FRBs are studied using parameters such as dispersion measure, redshift, and localisation to host galaxies.

¨     Localised FRBs help scientists understand the intergalactic medium, galaxy evolution, and compact objects like magnetars.

¨     Cosmic Noon refers to the period when the universe was about 2–3 billion years old, marking peak star formation.

¨     FRB 20240304B originated when the universe was around 3 billion years old, during the cosmic noon era.

¨     This discovery effectively doubled the redshift reach of previously localised fast radio bursts.

¨     The MeerKAT telescope is a radio telescope array that operates at radio wavelengths for deep space observations.

¨     The James Webb Space Telescope is an infrared observatory used to study distant galaxies, stars, and planetary systems.

¨     LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) is a European network of radio telescopes used for low-frequency radio astronomy.