Shocking radio burst that took 8 bn years to reach Earth detected from distant galaxy

Mysterious radio bursts occur in space frequently but, these blasts last for just thousandths of a second. Recently, scientists have discovered a cosmic radio burst from the distant past that reached Earth some 8 billion years after it was generated. This new discovery is providing astronomers with new insights into these mysterious cosmic events. Know about the mysterious radio burst here.

Mysterious radio burst

According to a Phys.org report, this incredibly powerful blast of radio waves is known as a “fast radio burst (FRB) which is the most distant cosmic burst ever recorded. The source galaxy is reported to have been so far that it took eight billion years to reach Earth. The researchers speculate that the reason behind the blast are faraway lifeless stars referred to as magnetars, known as the most magnetically charged entities in the cosmos. However, it is so far one of the greatest mysteries that researchers are trying to find.

Ryan Shannon, an astrophysicist at Australia's Swinburne University reported that the ASKAP radio telescope in Western Australia last year discovered the radio burst. Shannon said, "We were lucky to be looking at that little spot in the sky for that one millisecond after the eight billion years the pulse had travelled to catch it." Furthermore, in the process of solving this mystery, scientists will also be able to unveil other mysteries in the universe as well.

What is a fast radio burst?

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are quick and intense bursts of electromagnetic radiation observed in radio frequencies, with durations of just a few milliseconds. As per reports, some FRBs have a repetitive pattern while the majority have only one-time occurrences and they just vanish without recurrence. Scientists have yet to uncover the reason behind these bursts, however, they have various theories regarding the topic such as magnetars, colliding neutron star binaries, and merging white dwarfs.