This hyperactive behavior has allowed scientists to characterize not only the galaxy in which it is located.
The object, named FRB 20201124A, was discovered with500m Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) in China and described in a new paper led by astronomer Heng Xu of Peking University in China.
So far, most evidence points to a magnetar—a neutron star with unusually strong magnetic fields—as the source of these FRB emissions.
If FRB 20201124A really belongs to one of these "wild space beasts", it looks like an unusual specimen.
"These observations bring us back to the drawing board,"says astrophysicist Bing Zhang of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. “It is clear that FRBs are more mysterious than we imagined. To further reveal the nature of these objects, additional multiwave observational campaigns are needed.”
Fast radio bursts have been a mystery toastronomers since they were first detected 15 years ago in archival data dating back to 2001: a burst of incredibly powerful radio emission that lasted just the blink of an eye. Since then, many such flares have been discovered: millisecond bursts of radio waves that emit at that moment as much energy as 500 million suns.
Most recorded eruptionserupted only once, which made them difficult to study (not to mention understand). Only a few were found to be repetitive, which helped scientists at least track them back to host galaxies.
Then, in 2020, there was a breakthrough. For the first time, a fast radio burst was detected in the Milky Way, prompting astrophysicists to trace the phenomenon to the activity of a magnetar.
The latest extraordinary FRB is anotheran example of such a rare repeater. In less than two months of observations, FRB 20201124A has provided astronomers with the largest sample of polarized fast radio burst data of any other FRB source.
Polarization refers to the orientation of light wavesin three-dimensional space. By studying how much this orientation has changed since the light left its source, scientists will be able to understand the medium it has traveled through. For example, strong polarization implies a powerful magnetic environment.
Based on the large amount of data provided by FRB 20201124A, astronomers were able to deduce that the source is a magnetar.
But there was something strange about this phenomenon. The way the polarization changed over time suggested that the strength of the magnetic field and the density of particles around the magnetar fluctuated.
“Such an environment is not directly expected for an isolated magnetar. Something else might be in the vicinity of the FRB engine, possibly a binary companion,” Zhang explains.
The data suggest that this companion maybe a hot blue Be-type star that is often found in neutron star companions. The evidence for this was presented in a separate paper led by astronomer Fain Wang of Nanjing University in China.
But FRB 20201124A has been found in a galaxy very similar to the Milky Way. There isn't much star formation going on here, so there shouldn't be a stellar boom near the unusual FRB either.
However, FRB 20201124A is not the only sourceAn FRB found in a relatively star-free galaxy. The growing number of spikes suggests that there is some important piece of information that scientists are missing.
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