7-galaxy pileup linked to the most powerful fast radio burst on record

For the first time, an extremely potent burst of electromagnetic energy has been traced back to a combination of seven interacting galaxies. This discovery might provide support to the theory that these mysterious explosions, referred to as fast radio bursts, are generated from peculiar, highly magnetized defunct stars known as magnetars.

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are short, intense energy events. They only last for a fraction of a second but they discharge as much energy as the sun emits over one month. The origins of these unusual phenomena, which were first discovered in 2007, remain uncertain.

“Our theory is that they’re produced by an extremely dense object, such as a magnetar,” said Alexa Gordon, an astronomer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., on January 9 during a news conference at the American Astronomical Society’s annual gathering. Previous research noticed a magnetar in our galaxy creating an FRB, but it's yet to be definitively proven that all FRBs can be attributed to magnetars.

Employing NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, Gordon and her team took a more in-depth look at the origin of FRB 20220610A, which is the most intense and remote FRB found to date. To their surprise, their research indicated a group of seven galaxies situated 11 billion light-years away from Earth, all packed into an area the size of the Milky Way.

“We were anticipating a single, large spiral galaxy,” stated Northwestern astronomer Wen-fai Fong. “The actual image was quite shocking.”

FRBs have been traced back to various environments, including individual galaxies and spherical star clusters. However, this is the first FRB discovered to originate from a conglomeration of seven galaxies, as reported at the news briefing and in a paper published in November on arXiv.org.

Such disorderly conditions can result in galaxies exchanging gas, dust, and other materials, causing star formations. If a star of considerable mass was formed under these conditions, its eventual demise could have resulted in a magnetar, which may explain the source of the FRB. The research team plans to use the James Webb Space Telescope for more detailed observation of the seven-galaxy system, to look for signs of a magnetar.