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, named FRB 20250316A or ‘RBFLOAT,’ is the first to be tracked down by astronomers to a precise location within a neighboring galaxy.
Moreover, using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), they spotted a faint infrared light, they’ve dubbed NIR-1, which might be hiding the true source of the radio signal.
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.’
Scientists have found the exact source of a fast radio burst in deep space for the first time (Artist’s impression)
The signal came from a nearby galaxy, called NGC 4141, which is just 130 million light-years from Earth
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).
Although it’s 130 million light-years from Earth, NGC 4141 is relatively close compared to other FRBs humans have detected, which came from billions of light-years away on the opposite side of the universe.
The discovery was made using a Canadian radio telescope called CHIME, which is designed to catch these rare bursts.
CHIME recently got an upgrade with ‘outrigger’ telescopes spread across North America, from British Columbia to California.
These extra telescopes helped pinpoint the exact location of the signal with incredible accuracy, like spotting a coin from 130 miles away.
After finding the burst, scientists used JWST to take detailed infrared pictures of the same spot, revealing the faint object that might be a local star or something else.
Edo Berger, a professor of astronomy at Harvard, said in a statement: ‘Being able to isolate individual stars around an FRB is a huge gain over previous searches, and it begins to tell us what sort of stellar systems could produce these powerful bursts.’
The James Webb Space Telescope helped researchers detect a faint infrared light, they’ve dubbed NIR-1, which could be hiding the source that produced the radio burst
The James Webb Space Telescope is the most powerful ever built. It allows astronomers to peer across time and space to see the earliest formations in our universe
Fast radio bursts like RBFLOAT are like a sudden, loud ‘beep’ of invisible energy that vanishes before you can blink.
Although they’re made of the same type of invisible energy that carries music to a car radio, they pack a huge amount of energy, similar to all the power of a city flashing its lights for a split second.
However, unlike a radio signal on Earth carrying voices or music, an FRB delivers a sudden static ‘pop’ that disappears right away.
Currently, scientists have several theories about what might have caused this particular radio burst, as well as other FRBs that regularly repeat throughout the cosmos.
NIR-1 might be a red giant star, a star near the end of its life that has expanded and brightened.
The researchers suggested that this star could be hiding an unseen companion star, like a magnetar, which triggered the FRB by pulling material from the dying red giant.
The FRB could have also come from a magnetar in a nearby cluster of young, massive stars, even though the magnetar itself is too dim to see from Earth.
A third possibility the study authors proposed was that the infrared light is a fading ‘echo’ from the burst itself, not a star, and scientists plan to observe it again to see if it dims, which could clarify the source.
Fast radio bursts are believed to come from natural sources in space, but some scientists have theorized that they could be signals from alien races (Stock Image)
If the source of the brief signal was extraterrestrial, it could look just like a natural FRB if they sent a short, powerful radio burst out into space.
However, FRBs like the one being studied this year have shown no signs of having any intelligent patterns or codes that contain messages.
Amanda Cook, a McGill-based postdoctoral researcher, said in a press release: ‘This result marks a turning point: instead of just detecting these mysterious flashes, we can now see exactly where they’re coming from.’
‘It opens the door to discovering whether they’re caused by dying stars, exotic magnetic objects, or something we haven’t thought of yet,’ Cook added.
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