Astronomers track a mysterious cosmic object that performs 1,652 bursts of energy in a short period of time.
The object is called an FRB (fast radio burst), a mysterious phenomenon first observed in 2007. FRBs generate pulses in the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. These pulses last only a few milliseconds but produce as much energy as the sun in a year.
Some FRBs emit energy just once, but many – including FRB 121.102, are located in a dwarf star known to repeat outbursts. Using the 5 Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) in China, a team of scientists decided to conduct an extensive study of this repeating FRB. Bing Zhang, an astrophysicist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA, said the campaign was just about collecting routine data about this particular entity.
Mr. Zhang added that FAST is the world’s most sensitive radio telescope, so it can detect things that previous observatories might have missed. For about 60 hours, the researchers watched FRB 121102 explode 1,652 times, sometimes up to 117 times per hour, far more than any repeating FRB.
Most FRBs occur in the distant universe, which makes them difficult to study. In 2020, however, astronomers found an FRB inside our Milky Way, allowing them to determine that the source is a type of dead star known as a magneto.
Magnetic stars formed from super-dense stellar bodies are called neutron stars. While all neutron stars have strong magnetic fields, some exoplanets have special magnetic fields with high intensity that can distort their behavior, causing them to become magnetic. It is not yet known whether all FRBs are magnetar stars.
