Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are often mysterious in nature, but not an unusual observation in deep space. However, researchers have discovered the first FRB that emerged from the Milky Way galaxy, according to a newly published study.
The research details magnetar SGR 1935 + 2154, which was discovered in 2014, but it was not until April 2020 when scientists saw that it became active again, shooting radio waves and X-rays at random intervals.
“We have never seen a burst of radio waves resembling a fast radio burst from a magnetar before,” said the study’s lead author, Sandro Mereghetti of the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF – IASF).
Image of artist of the radio bursting magnetar SGR 1935 + 2154. (Credit: ESA)
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This FRB probably comes from a neutron star, about 30,000 light-years from Earth in the Vulpecula constellation, reports LiveScience. A light-year, which measures distance in space, is about 6 trillion miles.
Mereghetti and the other researchers discovered the FRB using the European Space Agency (ESA) Integral satellite on 28 April.
The “Burst Alert System” issued a warning about the discovery around the world “in just seconds”, which Merghetti said enabled “the scientific community to act quickly and explore this source in more detail.”
Astronomers around the world also saw the “short and very bright burst of radio waves” via the CHIME radio telescope in Canada also on April 28. Subsequent confirmations came the next day from California and Utah.
“This is the first observational connection between magnetars and Fast Radio Bursts,” Mereghetti added. “It really is a great discovery, and helps bring the origins of these mysterious phenomena into focus.”
The study was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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It is unknown how often FRBs actually occur and why some of them recur and others do not; most of their origins are also mysterious in nature.
Some researchers have speculated that they originated from an extraterrestrial civilization. But others, including the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, or SETI, have said that statement “really makes no sense.”
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They come from outer space “and regulate cooperative alien behavior if even one-way communication lasts many billions of years seems unlikely – to put it mildly,” SETI wrote in a September 2019 blog post.
First discovered in 2007, FRBs are relatively new to astronomers and their origins are mysterious. According to ScienceAlert, some of them can generate as much energy as 500 million suns in a few milliseconds.
In July 2018, an FRB hitting Earth was nearly 200 megahertz lower than any other radio burst ever discovered.
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