Radio Message from When the Universe Was Young ⚡ экспресс
FRB 20240304B was discovered by the MeerKAT radio telescope and localized in a galaxy with active star formation at a redshift of z=2.148±0.001 (about 3 billion years after the Big Bang). This doubles the redshift range of localized FRBs and allows probing ionized baryons across ~80% of cosmic history. The line of sight crosses the Virgo Cluster and a nearby group of galaxies, revealing the complexity of magnetic fields on gigaparsec scales. The observations confirm FRB activity at the peak of cosmic star formation and demonstrate their suitability for studying galaxy formation during the most dynamic era of the Universe.
The radio flash FRB 20240304B is a message from the past, a brief signal on invisible waves. Like a letter passing through hundreds of hands, it absorbed traces of everything it encountered during its 11-billion-year journey: gas, magnetic fields, entire galaxy clusters. Over that time, the expansion of the universe stretched space, and the signal became a key to the history of galaxy growth. Long before the discoveries of Edwin Hubble and Georges Lemaître, who proved expansion, it was already racing through the void. The James Webb Space Telescope found its starting point—a small, clumpy galaxy bustling with star formation. So these bursts flashed even when the universe was very young. But the biggest surprise was the magnetic fields: they turned out to be tangled, like a mess of old phone cords, not smooth lines. Such messages from the outskirts of the cosmos help us reconstruct the story from the Big Bang to the present day.
🎯 The energy of such a flash in a millisecond rivals that of the Sun over several days, even though its source could fit within a small city.