The Earth frequently receives space signals that offer crucial insights into highly energetic phenomena. Among the most intriguing are bursts of intense radio waves known as fast radio bursts (FRBs). These are likened to a robust lighthouse beam appearing for milliseconds in a remote, turbulent cosmic sea. Detecting these signals is an achievement, but discovering their origin and understanding their source remains a major scientific challenge.
Recent research spearheaded by Northwestern University, USA, has captured astronomical attention. The team detected one of the most luminous FRBs recorded and pinpointed its origin with remarkable accuracy.
The signal, named RBFLOAT, arrived in March 2025, lasting mere milliseconds and emitting energy equivalent to four days’ worth of the sun’s output. Through advanced analysis, researchers traced its origin to a spiral galaxy’s arm 130 million light-years away, towards the constellation Ursa Major. The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The CHIME radio telescope in Canada, a leading FRB observatory, and a smaller subnetwork called Outriggers detected this extraordinary outburst. CHIME identified the signal and the Outriggers narrowed down its location in space. Optical and X-ray telescopes contributed additional data. The team managed a precision of 13 parsecs, or about 42 light-years, within the galaxy NGC 4141.
Though previous FRBs have been pinpointed, those signals were recurring, simplifying analysis. “RBFLOAT was the first non-repeating source localized to such precision,” said Sunil Simha, co-author of the study. “These are much harder to locate. Detecting RBFLOAT demonstrates that CHIME can indeed pick up such events and build a statistically interesting FRB sample.”
Scientists still debate what causes RFBs, but one idea is that they stem from extreme cosmic occurrences such as neutron star mergers, magnetars, or pulsars.
For RBFLOAT, data suggests it’s in a star-forming zone with very large stars. Triangulation places the signal in a galactic arm where new stars are being formed. This implies it could be a magnetar, a type of neutron star with a magnetic field billions of times stronger than Earth’s.
The RBFLOAT discovery allows the team to apply this triangulation to future signals. Researchers estimate they could accurately detect about 200 RBFs per year using only signals captured by CHIME.
“For years, we’ve known FRBs occur all over, but pinpointing them has been painstakingly slow. Now, we can routinely link them to specific galaxies, even down to particular regions within those galaxies,” said Yuxin Dong, another team member.
This story initially appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.