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Fast radio bursts can emit as much power as hundreds of millions of suns but only last a few milliseconds, making them difficult to study, until now.

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Story Highlights

  • It had been a mystery as to what objects could possibly produce such brief though brilliant radio bursts.
  • It appears the radio pulses were produced by a magnetar – a type of neutron star with a hugely powerful magnetic field.
  • The findings were published Wednesday in a series of studies in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature.

For the first time, astronomers have discovered a “fast radio burst” that came from within our own Milky Way galaxy, according to new research published Wednesday.

They also believe they have found a source of one of the bursts, which are extremely bright flashes of energy that last for a fraction of a second, during which they can blast out more than 100 million times more power than our sun.

Since they were first detected in 2007, astronomers have observed these fast radio bursts scattered across the universe, but their sources have been too far away to clearly make out, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Making it even harder is that they happen so fast, in a couple of milliseconds.

It had been a mystery, then, as to what objects could possibly produce such brief though brilliant radio bursts.

A file photo provided by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment collaboration shows the CHIME radio telescope in Kaleden, British Columbia, Canada. On Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, astronomers say they used the instrument to trace an April 2020 fast radio burst to our own galaxy and a type of powerful energetic young star called a magnetar. (Photo: Andre Renard, AP)

Now astronomers report that in April, they observed fast radio bursts from within our own galaxy, for the first time. The radio pulses are the closest ones detected to date, and their proximity has allowed the team to pinpoint their source.

It came from outer space: Weird radio signal came from distant galaxy

It appears the radio pulses were produced by a magnetar – a type of neutron star with a hugely powerful magnetic field. How powerful? The field can be 10 trillion times stronger than a refrigerator magnet’s and up to a thousand times stronger than a typical neutron star’s. This represents an enormous storehouse of energy that astronomers suspect powers magnetar outbursts, according to NASA.

The magnetar that produced the burst is an estimated 32,000 light-years from Earth, located in the constellation Vulpecula.

Fast radio bursts: More ‘fast radio bursts’ have been detected from a distant galaxy. This one has a repeating pattern.

Magnetars are incredibly dense, with 1.5 times the mass of our sun squeezed into a space the size of Manhattan. Physicists had hypothesized that magnetars might produce fast radio bursts, but proof had been lacking, until now. 

“There’s this great mystery as to what would produce these great outbursts of energy, which until now we’ve seen coming from halfway across the universe,” said Kiyoshi Masui, assistant professor of physics at MIT, who led an analysis of the radio burst’s brightness. “This is the first time we’ve been able to tie one of these exotic fast radio bursts to a single astrophysical object.”

The findings were published Wednesday in a series of studies in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature. 

Astronomers have had as many 50 different theories for what causes these fast radio bursts, including aliens, and they emphasize that magnetars may not be the only answer, especially since there seem to be two types of fast radio bursts. Some, like the one spotted in April, happen only once, while others repeat themselves often.

However, one expert believes magnetars are the source of most radio bursts.

“Before this event, a wide variety of scenarios could explain the origin of fast radio bursts,” said Chris Bochenek, a doctoral student in astrophysics at Caltech who led one study of the radio event. “While there may still be exciting twists in the story of fast radio bursts in the future, for me, right now, I think it’s fair to say that most come from magnetars until proven otherwise.”

Contributing: The Associated Press

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