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Looking Skyward: Astronomers work to understand mysterious fast radio bursts

CAI | By John Basile
Published March 3, 2022 at 1:37 PM EST
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have tracked down two brief, powerful radio bursts to the spiral arms of the two galaxies shown above. The two images at left show the full Hubble snapshots of each galaxy. The two digitally enhanced images on the right reveal each galaxy’s spiral structure in more detail. The catalogue names of the bursts are FRB 190714 (top row), and FRB 180924 (bottom row). The galaxies are far from Earth, appearing as they looked billions of years ago. The dotted oval lines in each of the four images mark the location of the brilliant radio flares.
SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, Alexandra Mannings (UC Santa Cruz), Wen-fai Fong (Northwestern) IMAGE PROCESSING: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have tracked down two brief, powerful radio bursts to the spiral arms of the two galaxies shown above. The two images at left show the full Hubble snapshots of each galaxy. The two digitally enhanced images on the right reveal each galaxy’s spiral structure in more detail. The catalogue names of the bursts are FRB 190714 (top row), and FRB 180924 (bottom row). The galaxies are far from Earth, appearing as they looked billions of years ago. The dotted oval lines in each of the four images mark the location of the brilliant radio flares.

A recently discovered fast radio burst is further confounding scientists trying to understand the nature of these mysterious signals from space. CAI's John Basile talks with Dr. Regina Jorgenson of the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Nantucket about this phenomenon.
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In This Place Looking Skyward
John Basile
John Basile is the local host of All Things Considered weekday afternoons and a reporter.
See stories by John Basile