Webb Locates the Host Galaxy of a Fast Radio Burst: a Small Dwarf Forming Stars
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope used its NIRCam near-infrared camera to detect the host galaxy of a fast radio burst catalogued as FRB 20240304B, the source marked by a white cross in the published image. Astronomers found that the galaxy is a small dwarf galaxy that is actively forming stars. The interesting part is the pairing: a burst that lasts a fraction of a second now has a specific, rather modest galaxy attached to it, somewhere in the distant universe.
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Fast radio bursts are millisecond-long flashes of radio emission from the distant universe, and they were first discovered in 2007.
Their origin is still uncertain, and most are seen once and never again. A burst with an identified host galaxy is therefore a more useful puzzle piece than another lonely flash.