Commonwealth Industrial and Scientific Research Organization | 2020 Jun 02
Astronomers have peered into the home galaxies of fast radio bursts, ruling out supermassive black holes as a cause and bringing us a step closer to understanding the origins of these mysterious signals from outer space.
Fast radio bursts – the hottest topic in astronomy right now – were first detected in 2007, but astronomers are still working out what could make such a brief signal appear so bright. In just a millisecond, a single burst releases more energy than our Sun emits in 80 years.
Now Dr Shivani Bhandari ... has made a key breakthrough by zooming in on the precise location of four fast radio bursts and having a look around their ‘neighbourhoods’. ...
Using a specially designed transient detector on CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope in outback Western Australia, Dr Bhandari and her team found the exact location of four fast radio bursts. ...
This first detailed study of the galaxies that host fast radio bursts rules out several of the more extreme theories put forward to explain their origins, getting us closer to knowing their true nature. ...
Follow-up observations with the world’s largest optical telescopes – Gemini South, ESO’s Very Large Telescope, Magellan Baade, Keck, and LCOGT-1m – identified, imaged and found the distances to the host galaxies. ...
The Host Galaxies and Progenitors of Fast Radio Bursts Localized
with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder ~ Shivani Bhandari et al
- Astrophysical Journal Letters 895(2):L37 (2020 Jun 01) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab672e
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:2005.13160 > 27 May 2020