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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →A millisecond radio flash that MeerKAT detected in South Africa on 4 March 2024 has been traced to a small, young galaxy that existed about 3 billion years after the Big Bang. Reported in Science on 8 October 2026, it is the most distant fast radio burst (FRB) yet localized to a host galaxy. The qualifier matters: “most distant known” is a claim about the current record, and it can be overtaken as more bursts are localized.
What was detected, and when
The burst, designated FRB 20240304B, was picked up by the MeerTRAP team using MeerKAT, the radio array operated by South Africa. MeerKAT’s job was to detect the signal and pin down where in the sky it came from. Radio localization gave a precise position, but no galaxy could be seen at that spot from ground-based telescopes. That gap is what sent the team to the James Webb Space Telescope.
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Webb did not detect the radio burst. It imaged the region where MeerKAT’s position pointed, found a faint galaxy there, and then measured that galaxy’s distance. Radio told the team where to look; Webb told them what they were looking at.
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The word “ancient” can mean two different things here, and the reporting on this result sometimes blurs them. The burst was emitted when the universe was about 3 billion years old. Its radio waves then travelled for more than 10 billion years before reaching Earth. The table separates the figures.
| Measure | Value and source | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Detection on Earth | 4 March 2024, MeerKAT (MeerTRAP team) | When the signal arrived at the telescope |
| Redshift | 2.148 ± 0.001, from Webb NIRSpec spectroscopy (Caleb et al., Science, 8 October 2026) | How much the host galaxy’s light has been stretched by the expansion of the universe. This is a cosmological measure, not a simple distance in light-years. |
| Cosmic epoch of emission | About 3 billion years after the Big Bang (NASA Webb release, 8 October 2026) | The point in cosmic history when the burst was produced |
| Travel time of the signal | More than 10 billion years (NASA Webb release, 8 October 2026) | How long the radio waves spent crossing space before reaching us |
The reason the travel time is so much longer than the emission epoch is simple: the universe has been expanding for nearly 14 billion years, and the signal was emitted about 3 billion years in. Ten-plus billion years of travel, starting from that early point, is what brings the signal to the present.
How the host galaxy was found
Finding a host is the hard step. Each part of the process needs a different kind of instrument, and the failure modes differ.
- Detect and localize the burst. MeerKAT recorded the millisecond signal and fixed its position on the sky. This is the step that made the burst worth following up.
- Search for a counterpart in ground-based data. No galaxy was visible at the localized position from ground telescopes. A galaxy that faint at this distance is hard to separate from the sky background without space-based infrared imaging.
- Image with Webb NIRCam. The Near-Infrared Camera revealed a galaxy at the relevant location. This is the step that identified a host candidate.
- Measure the redshift with Webb NIRSpec. The Near-Infrared Spectrograph split the galaxy’s light into its component wavelengths, allowing the team to measure the redshift in the table above. Without a spectrum, the galaxy would be a candidate, not a confirmed distance.
The Webb imaging and spectroscopy were the difference between a precise position with no visible source and a distance measured for a specific galaxy. The University of California, Santa Cruz, which described the host galaxy’s properties, emphasized this division of roles.
What the host galaxy looks like
The host is a low-mass, clumpy, star-forming dwarf galaxy. Its clumps are regions of active star formation spread across a small body. Compared with the galaxies that have typically been linked to FRBs in the nearby universe, it is smaller and younger, and that is what surprised the team.
Rank #3
University of Oxford Department of Physics, which announced the collaboration’s results, quoted MeerTRAP project leader and co-author Professor Ben Stappers: “The host sticks out in the whole galaxy sample that we have. And it was not what we were expecting.”
The finding is a constraint on theory, not an answer. It suggests that galaxies can produce FRBs fairly soon after they begin forming stars, which is relevant to models of what kind of object makes these bursts. It does not identify the mechanism. A single well-measured host cannot establish that every FRB comes from this kind of galaxy, or from any particular source type.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the result changes, and what it does not
Radio bursts last only milliseconds, but they are not unaffected by what lies between us and their source. Free electrons in ionized gas delay different radio frequencies by different amounts, so the signal carries information about the plasma it crossed. That is why localized FRBs are of interest as probes of matter that is hard to observe directly, including ionized material in the space between galaxies.
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The Science paper reports two consequences of this localization. First, it doubles the redshift reach of localized FRBs, meaning astronomers can now tie a burst to a host at a greater distance than before. Second, the authors describe it as a way to probe ionized baryonic matter across about 80% of cosmic history. That is a statement about the observational reach of the method, not a finding that this single burst has mapped all matter in the universe.
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The result also does not settle what causes FRBs. The lead author, Dr. Manisha Caleb of the University of Sydney, put the situation this way in NASA’s 8 October 2026 release: “What makes fast radio bursts interesting is that we don’t know what generates them. We have theories about what objects produce them, but we don’t have conclusive proof.” Most FRBs are seen once and never again, so the origin question still rests on a small number of localized sources.
Where to read the primary material
- Caleb et al., “A fast radio burst at redshift 2, three billion years after the Big Bang,” Science, published 8 October 2026, DOI 10.1126/science.adz2675. The authors’ preprint abstract is at arXiv:2508.01648, posted in 2025.
- NASA Webb mission team, “Webb Measures Distance to Farthest Fast Radio Burst, Suggesting Origin,” 8 October 2026.
- ESA/Webb release, 8 October 2026, which places the result in the broader context of FRB research.
- University of Sydney release, distributed through EurekAlert!, 8 October 2026, covering the detection and telescope roles.
Coverage dated 9 October 2026 on aggregator sites repeats these details; the 8 October paper and official releases are the dated originals.
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