Pinpointing a single fast radio burst: Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are flashes of radio emission from distant astronomical sources. Two FRBs are known to have repeated, but most last just a few milliseconds and are never seen again. Most telescopes that are sensitive to single FRBs have poor angular resolutions, so the FRB host galaxies remain unknown. Bannister et al. used a dedicated observing mode on a radio interferometer to detect and localize the nonrepeating FRB 180924, then followed up with optical telescope observations (see the Perspective by Petroff). They found that the FRB came from a medium-sized galaxy at a cosmological distance. Localizing FRBs will help determine their causes and allow them to be used as cosmological probes. Science , this issue p. 565 ; see also p. 546

Probing a galaxy halo with a radio burst: Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond flashes of radio emission from distant galaxies. It has only recently become possible to locate single bursts precisely enough to determine the host galaxy. Prochaska et al. have observed and localized a FRB using a radio interferometer. The line of sight to the host galaxy coincidentally passes through the outskirts of a closer foreground galaxy. By analyzing the propagation of the FRB, the authors put constraints on the density and magnetization of gas in the outskirts of the foreground galaxy. The technique provides complementary information to existing methods using background quasars. Science , this issue p. 231

We present observations and detailed characterizations of five new host galaxies of fast radio bursts (FRBs) discovered with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and localized to ≲1″. Combining these galaxies with FRB hosts from the literature, we introduce criteria based on the probability of chance coincidence to define a subsample of 10 highly confident associations (at z = 0.03–0.52), 3 of which correspond to known repeating FRBs. Overall, the FRB-host galaxies exhibit a broad, continuous range of color (M _u − M _r = 0.9–2.0), stellar mass (M _⋆ = 10⁸ − 6 × 10¹⁰ M _⊙), and star formation rate (SFR = 0.05–10 M _⊙ yr⁻¹) spanning the full parameter space occupied by z < 0.5 galaxies. However, they do not track the color–magnitude, SFR–M _⋆, nor BPT diagrams of field galaxies surveyed at similar redshifts. There is an excess of “green valley” galaxies and an excess of emission-line ratios indicative of a harder radiation field than that generated by star formation alone. From the observed stellar mass distribution, we rule out the hypothesis that FRBs strictly track stellar mass in galaxies (>99% c.l.). We measure a median offset of 3.3 kpc from the FRB to the estimated center of the host galaxies and compare the host-burst offset distribution and other properties with the distributions of long- and short-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs and SGRBs), core-collapse supernovae (CC-SNe), and SNe Ia. This analysis rules out galaxies hosting LGRBs (faint, star-forming galaxies) as common hosts for FRBs (>95% c.l.). Other transient channels (SGRBs, CC-, and SNe Ia) have host-galaxy properties and offsets consistent with the FRB distributions. All of the data and derived quantities are made publicly available on a dedicated website and repository.

We present the localization and host galaxies of one repeating and two apparently nonrepeating fast radio bursts (FRBs). FRB 20180301A was detected and localized with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array to a star-forming galaxy at z = 0.3304. FRB20191228A and FRB20200906A were detected and localized by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder to host galaxies at z = 0.2430 and z = 0.3688, respectively. We combine these with 13 other well-localized FRBs in the literature, and analyze the host galaxy properties. We find no significant differences in the host properties of repeating and apparently nonrepeating FRBs. FRB hosts are moderately star forming, with masses slightly offset from the star-forming main sequence. Star formation and low-ionization nuclear emission-line region emission are major sources of ionization in FRB host galaxies, with the former dominant in repeating FRB hosts. FRB hosts do not track stellar mass and star formation as seen in field galaxies (more than 95% confidence). FRBs are rare in massive red galaxies, suggesting that progenitor formation channels are not solely dominated by delayed channels which lag star formation by gigayears. The global properties of FRB hosts are indistinguishable from core-collapse supernovae and short gamma-ray bursts hosts, and the spatial offset (from galaxy centers) of FRBs is mostly inconsistent with that of the Galactic neutron star population (95% confidence). The spatial offsets of FRBs (normalized to the galaxy effective radius) also differ from those of globular clusters in late- and early-type galaxies with 95% confidence.