questions about mysterious signals rose up after detecting these signals.
Fast radio burst is a transient radio pulse of length ranging from a fraction of a millisecond, for an ultra-fast radio burst, to 3 seconds, caused by some high-energy astrophysical process not yet understood. Astronomers estimate the average FRB releases as much energy in a millisecond as the Sun puts out in three days. While extremely energetic at their source, the strength of the signal reaching Earth has been described as 1,000 times less than from a mobile phone on the Moon.
The first FRB was discovered by Duncan Lorimer and his student David Narkevic in 2007 when they were looking through archival pulsar survey data, and it is therefore commonly referred to as the Lorimer Burst. Many FRBs have since been recorded, including several that have been detected to repeat in seemingly irregular ways. Only one FRB has been detected to repeat in a regular way: FRB 180916 seems to pulse every 16.35 days.
With their extremely strong magnetic fields, magnetars have long been considered the prime culprit capable of producing the powerful bursts of energy known as fast radio bursts.
Fast radio bursts, strong pulses of energy detected in radio-wave frequencies, may be a common phenomenon in the cosmos, but their enigmatic origins are something astronomers are only beginning to understand.
The recent burst, called FRB 20240209A, throws that theory into question. Now, astronomers must consider that not all fast radio bursts come from younger galaxies and stars.
Based on what scientists thought they knew about fast radio bursts, referred to in astronomy as FRBs, this type of galaxy should not contain the kind of star long thought to produce such bursts. The surprising source of the repeating burst has baffled astronomers, who haven’t considered that regions in which no stars are forming could produce such a radio flare.
Detailed in two related studies led by researchers at Northwestern University and McGill University, the discovery “shatters assumptions that FRBs solely emanate from regions of active star formation,” according to a press release announcing the research findings. The groundbreaking find, the researchers claim, could reshape our understanding of the universe and its most powerful and mysterious signals.
“Just when you think you understand an astrophysical phenomenon, the universe turns around and surprises us,” Wen-fai Fong, an astronomer at Northwestern who was a senior author on both studies, said in a statement. “This ‘dialogue’ with the universe is what makes our field of time-domain astronomy so incredibly thrilling.”
When the Fast radio burst detected
The first fast radio burst to be described, the Lorimer Burst FRB 010724, was found in 2007 in archived data recorded by the Parkes Observatory on 24 July 2001.
Since then, many FRBs have been found in previously recorded data. On 19 January 2015, astronomers at Australia’s national science agency (CSIRO) reported that a fast radio burst had been observed for the first time live, by the Parkes Observatory.
Many FRBs have been detected in real time by the CHIME radio telescope since it became operational in 2018, including the first FRB detected from within the Milky Way in April 2020.
