Astronomers have recorded mysterious radio waves that took eight billion years to reach Earth.
According to research published in the journal “Science,” one of the radio waves called Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) reached Earth after an eight-billion-year journey.
The researchers reported that the length of the wave, called FRB 20220610A, lasted less than a millisecond.
According to CNN, one of the researchers, Stuart Ryder, noted that after discovering where the wave was coming from with a radio telescope called the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), he looked for the galaxy where the wave came from using the European Southern Observatory’s telescope in Chile.
Ryder stated that as a result of the study, it was discovered that this wave came from a much greater distance than other FRBs and that it was created as a result of an explosion caused by the merger of several galaxies.
Another researcher, Ryan Shannon, also stated that FRBs can be used to calculate the mass of the universe. Shannon noted that FRBs can detect intergalactic ionized material.
After the first FRB was discovered in 2007, the origins of 50 FRBs have been identified so far.
Photo: NASA