A powerful fast radio burst, FRB 20250316A (RBFLOAT), originated in the nearby galaxy NGC 4141 about 130 million light-years from Earth. FRBs are millisecond radio flashes believed to arise from extreme events such as supernovae leaving magnetars, though artificial origins have been considered. The burst was traced to a small area in the outskirts of NGC 4141 roughly the size of a star cluster. The James Webb Space Telescope detected a faint infrared source, NIR-1, at that location which may hide the true origin. Precise localization of single, non-repeating bursts enables deeper study of their nature.
Scientists have pinpointed the origin of a mysterious radio burst from deep space, discovering an unknown object sitting in a nearby galaxy that appears to have created the signal. A team from the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and McGill University in Canada revealed that one of the brightest fast radio bursts (FRBs) ever detected came from the galaxy called NGC 4141, just 130 million light-years away from Earth. FRBs are incredibly quick and powerful bursts of radio waves in space that last just a few milliseconds.
They are thought to come from extreme events in space, such as the explosive deaths of massive stars (supernovas) that leave behind super-dense, magnetic neutron stars called magnetars. However, some scientists have wondered if FRBs could be artificial, meaning they might come from advanced alien technology, like powerful radio signals sent by an extraterrestrial civilization. This powerful burst detected in March,
Mawson Sammons, a postdoctoral researcher at McGill, said: 'This marks the beginning of a new era where we can routinely localize even single, non-repeating bursts to pinpoint precision. That's a game-changer for understanding what's behind them.' The FRB came from the direction of the Big Dipper, a well-known constellation in the sky. It was traced to a small area in the outskirts of NGC 4141, about the size of a star cluster (a group of stars within larger galaxies).
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