South Africa's MeerKAT and the Webb telescope just found the home of the most distant radio burst yet

A fleeting flash from deep space — a fast radio burst called FRB 20240304B — has been traced to its home: a small, young, star-forming dwarf galaxy seen as it was at cosmic noon, when star making peaked across the universe. South Africa's MeerKAT array and NASA's Webb telescope worked together on the find, published in Science. The galaxy is about 1,000 times smaller than typical burst hosts, which points scientists toward a young magnetar — a highly magnetic neutron star — as the likely source.