Scientists have managed first time to trace a very short, very bright burst of radio waves (fast radio burst, or FRB) to a type of highly magnetised dead star, known as a magnetar.
- On 28 April 2020, the Chime telescope detected this millisecond-long FRB coming from a region of the sky where a magnetar called SGR1935+2154 lurks.
- A second, less sophisticated telescope known as the Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2, or Stare2, swiftly confirmed the sighting, along with an outburst of x-rays from the same source.
- FRBs were first detected in 2007 by Duncan Lorimer and his student David Narkevic while working through archived observations from the Parkes radio dish in Australia. However, the intense burst of radio waves lasted less than five milliseconds, and what had produced it was a mystery. Scientists have recorded dozens more since, all from beyond our own galaxy.
(Source: BBC and Guardian)
