Yahoo – AFP,
January 11, 2018
Astronomers have edged closer to solving the mystery of distant cosmic radio bursts according to a study Wednesday that offers insights into the blasts which emit more energy in a single millisecond than our sun does all day.
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| The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico |
Astronomers have edged closer to solving the mystery of distant cosmic radio bursts according to a study Wednesday that offers insights into the blasts which emit more energy in a single millisecond than our sun does all day.
International
astronomers have spotted a few dozen fast radio bursts (FRBs) -- and as many as
10,000 may occur daily -- but only one has repeated sporadically, known as FRB
121102, allowing it to be studied.
Researchers
reported in the journal Nature that it appears to come from in an extreme
environment, "among the most highly magnetized regions of space ever
observed."
Similar
environments are known to exist around massive black holes, but that may not be
the only answer.
The radio
bursts from FRB 121102 could also originate from a young neutron star inside a
powerful nebula, or a supernova remnant, said the report.
"This
is exotic. If we had one of these on the other side of our own galaxy -- the
Milky Way -- it would disrupt radio here on Earth, and we'd notice, as it would
saturate the signal levels on our smartphones," said Shami Chatterjee,
senior research associate in astronomy at Cornell University.
"Whatever
is happening there is scary. We would not want to be there."
These radio
bursts were first discovered in 2007, so small even steps toward understanding
their source offers big excitement for astronomers.
The source
of FRB 121102 and its environment are unique, indicating "a new type of
object not seen previously," said the report.
The huge
pulse of radio waves -- more than 500 times greater any other fast radio burst
observed to date -- come from three billion light years away and pass through a
veil of magnetized plasma.
FRB 121102
was discovered in 2014 by Laura Spitler, a postdoctoral researcher who now
works for the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany.
The
mysterious burst lasted three one-thousandths of a second.
The latest
data came from telescopes at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and Green
Bank Observatory in West Virginia.
"It's
remote sensing from three billion light years away," said James Cordes,
professor of astronomy at Cornell University.
"These
new measurements allow us to be much more specific about the immediate
surroundings of the source."
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