Astronomers investigating the mysterious Fast Radio Burst (FRB) 121102 have confirmed that the powerful phenomenon has a predictable cycle, allowing us to find out what causes it once and for all.
First discovered in 2012, the FRB is in a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years away, making it extremely difficult to control what some of the most powerful instruments on earth need.
FRBs are intense explosions of radio waves that can release as much power as hundreds of millions of senses in just milliseconds, but the majority of them we have observed have burst once to disappear, never to be heard again.
This makes it very difficult to discover their composition, control their behavior and determine their source. In other words, they are extremely difficult to study, only predicting if scientists have just succeeded.
A team led by Marilyn Cruces of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, in collaboration with other research conducted at the University of Manchester by astronomer Kaustubh Rajwade, has unveiled its model for the FRB cycle.
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For 67 days, FRB 121102 becomes dark, makes no sound, and effectively disappears only to ‘wake up’ for 90 days, producing these breathtaking millisecond radio torches that are so powerful that we can see them billions of light-years away here on Earth.
According to Cruces’ prediction for the FRB’s repeated and predictable 157-day cycle, the current torch phase will last from July 9 and October 14, 2020 before it is once in hibernation.
Several international teams, including the National Astronomy Observatory of China, which uses the Five Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), will continue to monitor FRB 121102 to try to determine what is behind these bursts.
Now, researchers around the world have a specific time frame to collect data before they have a predetermined period for intensive study without worrying that they might be missing some important detail or event.
Just a few FRBs have been rediscovered and they will probably hold the key to the development of the mystery once and for all and we can determine what is really behind these phenomenally powerful explosions. The leading theory suggests that a particular type of neutron star called a magnetar is responsible, but at least the mystery remains.
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