VIENNA, Austria, Oct. 18, 2026 - Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have identified the host galaxy of FRB 20240304B,^[1][2] the most distant fast radio burst ever recorded.^[3] Its signal comes from more than 10 billion light-years away,^[4] from a time when the universe was about 3 billion years old,^[5] more than doubling the previous distance record for such bursts.^[6] South Africa's MeerKAT radio telescope first detected the burst on 4 March 2024.^[7] The host is a small, metal-poor galaxy with active star formation,^[8] and researchers suggest the burst may come from a magnetar.^[9] The study was published on 8 October in the journal Science.^[10] Impact Insight. Fast radio bursts are millisecond-long flashes of radio energy originating outside the Milky Way. Their origins remain one of the largest open questions in astrophysics. Precisely localising individual bursts to their host galaxies is the primary method researchers use to test competing theories for what produces these signals. Resolving the host environment for this very distant burst will allow astronomers to compare conditions in the early universe to those around closer, better studied bursts.