Hubble photographs home of farthest fast radio burst (compass image)

A Hubble Space Telescope image of the host galaxy of an exceptionally powerful Fast Radio Burst, FRB20220610A. Hubble’s sensitivity and sharpness reveals a compact group of multiple galaxies that may be in the process of merging. They existed when the Universe was only 5 billion years old. FRB 20220610A was first detected on June 10, 2022 by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia, and confirmed to come from a distant origin by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.

[Image description: This image titled “Fast Radio Burst 20220610A HST WFC3” shows a field of blue, red, orange, yellow and white distant galaxies against the black backdrop of space. The white arrow inside the inset box points to the host galaxy of the exceptionally powerful fast radio burst 20220610A detected inside this galaxy group. The compass graphic at bottom right points to the object’s orientation on the celestial sphere. This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble. The colour results from assigning different colours to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. The assigned colours listed in the upper right corner of the image are: red: F160W and blue: F606W.]