Astronomers pinpoint the situation of the brightest quick radio burst thus far

An worldwide collaboration of astronomers, together with researchers from the University of Toronto, have detected the brightest Fast Radio Burst (FRB) thus far—and have been in a position to pinpoint its location in a close-by galaxy through the use of a community of radio telescopes.

FRBs are extraordinarily energetic flashes from distant sources from throughout the universe which might be attributable to excessive astrophysical phenomena. Yet, they continue to be poorly understood by scientists and are amongst astronomy’s most mysterious phenomena. Pinpointing their location guarantees to usher in a brand new period of discovery, permitting scientists to hint their true cosmic origins.

The new FRB sign, known as FRB 20250316A and playfully nicknamed RBFLOAT (“radio brightest flash of all time”), was very exactly localized utilizing a brand new FRB Outrigger array as a part of the Canadian Hydrogen-Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), which has detected hundreds of FRBs since 2018. These smaller variations of the CHIME instrument—positioned in British Columbia, Northern California and West Virginia—permit astronomers to carry out very lengthy baseline interferometry (VLBI), a method that may pinpoint the situation of FRBs with unprecedented accuracy.

“We were ultimately extremely lucky that we were able to pinpoint the precise sky position of this rare event,” mentioned Mattias Lazda, a U of T Ph.D. scholar within the David A. Dunlap division of astronomy and astrophysics within the Faculty of Arts & Science, who’s an creator on two new papers in regards to the discovery.

“A few hours after we detected it, we experienced a power outage at one of our telescope sites that played a critical role in telling us where the burst came from. Had the event happened any later that day, we would’ve completely missed our chance.”

Although FRBs are among the many strongest radio sources within the universe, they final just a few milliseconds to seconds, briefly outshining all different radio sources of their galaxy. RBFLOAT, detected on March 16, 2025, lasted solely about one-fifth of a second.

“Cosmically speaking, this fast radio burst is just in our neighborhood,” says Kiyoshi Masui, affiliate professor of physics and affiliate of MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “This means we get this chance to study a pretty normal FRB in exquisite detail.”

RBFLOAT was so vivid as a result of the supply was comparatively close by within the outskirts of a galaxy known as NGC 4141, which is about 130 million light-years away within the constellation Ursa Major. The sign was traced to a area 45 light-years throughout—smaller than the typical star cluster—representing an unprecedented spatial decision.

It is equal to observing a guitar decide from 1,000 kilometers away.

“The discovery was very exciting, because we had our brightest ever event right after all three outriggers were online,” mentioned Amanda Cook, a Banting postdoctoral researcher at McGill University and a U of T alum who led the paper describing RBFLOAT. “Immediately, even though it was a Sunday afternoon, a bunch of us piled into a Zoom room and started hacking away at the research, hoping to get follow-up observations on source as quickly as possible.”

The stage of element supplied by the CHIME/FRB Outrigger array allowed the workforce to comply with up with observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and seize a faint infrared sign that matched the situation of RBFLOAT. This shocked the researchers, who have been left questioning if the spot is a crimson big star or a fading mild echo from the burst itself.

“The high resolution of JWST allows us to resolve individual stars around an FRB for the first time. This opens the door to identifying the kinds of stellar environments that could give rise to such powerful bursts, especially when rare FRBs are captured with this level of detail,” mentioned Peter Blanchard, a Harvard postdoctoral fellow and lead creator of the companion paper describing the JWST commentary.

Despite being the brightest ever seen by CHIME, astronomers haven’t detected repeat bursts from the supply, even when trying again over the tons of of hours of CHIME observations of its place over greater than six years.

“This burst doesn’t seem to repeat, which makes it different from most well-studied FRBs,” mentioned Cook. “That challenges a major idea in the field, that all FRBs repeat, and opens the door to reconsidering more ‘explosive’ origins for at least some of them.”

Two research describing the phenomenon have been revealed within the Astrophysical Journal Letters: one is targeted on the unique radio discovery and localization of the burst; the opposite details the JWSTs near-infrared images of the location from which the radio burst originated. Together, they provide new element and new potentialities for finding out FRBs—not simply as cosmic curiosities, however as instruments to probe the universe.