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The first radio burst discovered in the Milky Way now repeats itself as it travels from a magnetar – a neutron star with a strong magnetic field – 32,616 light years away.
The initial flash of energy was first detected in April and scientists have identified two more, confirming that rapid radio bursts “are emitted by magnetars at cosmological distances.”
A team working with the Westerbrok Telescope in the Netherlands captured the signal, which came in the form of two short bursts, each one millisecond long and 1.4 seconds apart.
The bursts were also not emitted with the same force, suggesting that magnetars may have more than one process capable of producing rapid radio bursts.
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The initial flash of energy was first detected in April and scientists have identified two more, confirming that rapid radio bursts “ are emitted by magnetars at cosmological distances ”
Rapid Radio Bursts (FRBs) are brief, mysterious pulses, and although their origins are unclear, scientists use these energy flashes to study space along their way to Earth.
The magnetar studied, or “SGR 1935 + 2154”, is the closest source of a burst detected to date – the next closest being some 490 million light years away in another galaxy.
The initial burst, which is the first to be detected in our galaxy, was observed in April by telescopes located in Canada and the United States.
The recent two, spotted by Chalmers University of Technology, were captured by four European radio telescopes pointed at SGR 1935 + 2154.
A team working with the Westerbrok Telescope in the Netherlands captured the signal, which came in the form of two short bursts, each one millisecond long and 1.4 seconds apart.
One antenna is located in the Netherlands and another in Poland, as well as two at the Onsala Space Observatory in Sweden.
Combine telescopes have been monitoring the neutron star every night for more than four weeks after April.
Mark Snelders, team member at the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy at the University of Amsterdam, said: “We didn’t know what to expect. Our radio telescopes had rarely been able to see rapid radio bursts, and this source seemed to be doing something completely new. We were hoping to be surprised!
After recording 522 hours of observations, a small telescope surveillance team in the Netherlands received “a dramatic and unexpected signal”.
Kenzie Nimmo, astronomer at the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy and ASTRON, said: “We clearly saw two gusts, extremely close in time.”
“ Like the flash seen from the same source on April 28, it looked like the rapid radio bursts we had observed from the distant universe, but weaker. The two gusts we detected on May 24 were even weaker than that.
Magnetars – spinning remnants of some supernova explosions – are extremely dense and are surrounded by extremely strong magnetic fields that sometimes release radiation, usually in the form of gamma and X rays, when they decay.
Experts hypothesized that magnetars have vast reserves of energy that might be able to power rapid radio bursts, which could be released directly from the star’s surface – in the form of a so- saying “ starquake ” – or the magnetized environment.
After recording 522 hours of observations, a small team monitoring the telescope in the Netherlands (pictured) received ‘a dramatic and unexpected signal
Jason Hessels, from the Anton Pannekoek Institute of Astronomy and ASTRON, Netherlands, said: “The brightest lightning bolts from this magnetar are at least ten million times brighter than the fainter ones.
“ We asked ourselves, could this also be true for fast radio burst sources outside of our galaxy?
“ If this is the case, then the magnetars of the universe create beams of radio waves that could roam the cosmos all the time – and many of them could be within the reach of modest-sized telescopes like ours. . ”
Researchers are interested in rapid radio bursts not only in their origins, but also because they can reveal more about the parts of the universe that they pass through before reaching Earth.
The team plans to keep the group of radio telescopes pointed at SGR 1935 + 2154 and other magnetars nearby, in hopes of finding out how these extreme stars make their brief bursts of radiation.
Franz Kirsten, astronomer at Onsala Space Observatory, Chalmers, who led the project, said: “ The fireworks from this amazing nearby magnetar have given us exciting clues as to how quickly radio bursts could be generated. ”
“The bursts we detected on May 24 could indicate a dramatic disturbance in the star’s magnetosphere near its surface.
“Other possible explanations, like shock waves farther from the magnetar, seem less likely, but I’d love to be wrong.
“Whatever the answers, we can look forward to new measures and new surprises in the months and years to come.
FAST RADIO FLASHES ARE BRIEF RADIO TRANSMISSIONS FROM SPACE OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN
Fast Radio Bursts, or FRBs, are radio broadcasts that appear temporarily and randomly, making them not only difficult to find, but also difficult to study.
The mystery comes from the fact that it is not known what could produce such a short and sharp burst.
This has led some to speculate that it could be anything from colliding stars to artificially created messages.
Scientists looking for rapid radio bursts (FRBs) which some believe could be signals sent by extraterrestrials can occur every second. The blue dots in this artist’s impression of the filamentary structure of galaxies are signals from FRBs
The first FRB was spotted, or rather “heard” by radio telescopes, in 2001, but was not discovered until 2007, when scientists were analyzing archival data.
But it was so temporary and seemingly random that it took astronomers years to agree that this was not a problem in any of the telescope’s instruments.
Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics point out that FRBs can be used to study the structure and evolution of the universe, whether or not their origin is fully understood.
A large population of distant FRBs could act as material probes over gigantic distances.
This intermediate material scrambles the signal from the microwave cosmic background (CMB), the remaining radiation from the Big Bang.
Careful study of this intermediate material should lead to a better understanding of basic cosmic constituents, such as the relative amounts of ordinary matter, dark matter, and dark energy, that affect how quickly the universe expands.
FRBs can also be used to trace what shattered the “ fog ” of hydrogen atoms that flooded the early universe into free electrons and protons, when temperatures cooled after the Big Bang.
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