CSIRO ASKAP FRB Localization (VIDEO)
Caption
In a world first, an Australian-led international team of astronomers has determined the precise location of a powerful one-off burst of cosmic radio waves. The discovery was made with CSIRO's new Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia. Fast radio bursts last less than a millisecond, making it difficult to accurately determine where they have come from. CSIRO's Dr Keith Bannister and his team developed new technology to freeze and save ASKAP data less than a second after a burst arrives at the telescope. This technology was used to pinpoint the location of FRB 180924 to its home galaxy (DES J214425.25?405400.81). The team made a high-resolution map showing that the burst originated in the outskirts of a Milky Way-sized galaxy about 3.6 billion light-years away. The galaxy from which the burst originated was then imaged by three of the world's largest optical telescopes - Keck, Gemini South and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope. The cause of fast radio bursts remains unknown but the ability to determine their exact location is a big leap towards solving this mystery.
Credit
CSIRO/Sam Moorfield
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