An international team of astrophysicists has discovered the fast radio burst FRB 20191221A.
In his work, published in the journal Nature,scientists write that the source of the signal is in a distant galaxy, several billion light-years from Earth. It is not yet known which object sends out such radio emission, but the researchers believe that it is either a radio pulsar or a magnetar.
A fast radio burst (FRB) is a very strongburst of radio waves of unknown nature, which usually lasts a few milliseconds. The vast majority of known FRBs are single pulses.
FRB 20191221A was first detected usingCanadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope in December 2019. The detected pulse lasts an unusually long time: about 3 s (about a thousand times longer than the average FRB). At the same time, the researchers recorded at least nine bursts of radiation in the total signal, which repeat every 0.2 s and resemble a heartbeat.
CHIME radio telescope. Photo: Mateus A. Fandiño, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Analyzing the nature of radio emission, researchersdiscovered the similarity of FRB 20191221A with neutron stars (radio pulsars and magnetars) in the Milky Way. The main difference is that the new signal is more than a million times brighter than objects in our galaxy. Astrophysicists believe that this may be due to the location of the object.
Judging by the properties of this new signal, we can say that there is a plasma cloud around this source, which must be extremely turbulent.
Daniele Michilli, researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Research. Kavli at MIT
Astrophysicists hope to catch additional bursts of periodic FRB 20191221A. This will help refine our understanding of its source and of neutron stars in general.
Cover image: CHIME, MIT News
Read more:
The oldest Voyager 1 mission has a strange glitch that cannot be fixed
Scientists have found a "Pandora's box" in the bowels of the Earth: the energy from there feeds life on the planet
Scientists understand why T-Rex and other large dinosaurs had small "hands"