For the first time, scientists have identified the source of one of the mysterious radio bursts that has been giving astronomers a headache for the past 13 years.
The phenomenon is called FRB (Fast Radio Burst) and it was first noticed in 2007. Since then it has happened quite a few times, but without astronomers being able to identify where the flare is coming from.
Flare across the Milky Way
A superfluid star in the Milky Way was found to be the source of an FRB – a massively powerful radio burst.
1. Radiation exposes the star
The supernova SGR 1935+2154 is a known source of both X-rays (blue) and gamma-rays (red).
2. A radio burst is launched
An unknown process creates FRB flares (blue). The flare lasts only one millisecond, but takes 30,000 years to reach Earth.
3. The Origin Revealed
Canada’s CHIME radio telescope detects the flare, and its direction shows that it originated in this superquadrant star.
These are very short but extremely powerful bursts of radio radiation and have until now been thought to originate from nebulae millions or billions of light-years away, without scientists otherwise being able to figure out their origin.
Origin 30,000 light years away
This has now been changed. Astronomers at the Chime radio telescope in Canada detected the FRB and were also able to trace its origin to the supertift star SGR 1935+2154, which is 30,000 light-years away in the Milky Way.
Supernovae are special neutron stars that form after a supernova explodes.
All neutron stars have a strong magnetic field, often a thousand billion times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field, but in every tenth case the strength is a thousand times greater than that. This puts them in a special category, supernovae.
The cause of the FRB flare remains unknown
Astronomers have seen X-ray and gamma-ray emission from such stars before, but the FRB flare from this Milky Way supernova was many times more powerful. The flare lasted only one millisecond, but in intensity it corresponded to half a minute of radio wave radiation from the Sun.
The discovery of a particular source of FRB flares gives astronomers an opportunity to study the processes that trigger such flares and to find out why some of these stars periodically emit these flares.
