The artist’s image demonstrates the lasting fast radio emission, which was discovered with the help of a five-hundred-meter aperture spherical radio telescope, the world’s largest single-plate telescope in southwestern China’s Guizhou province. NATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL DATABASES, CAS
An international team led by Chinese astronomers has discovered a new type of rapid radio burst, extremely brief but bright flashes in space that mysteriously continue to explode on average every 10 to 15 minutes, according to a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. .
Scientists have said that this extraordinary discovery has challenged popular belief about this celestial event and could shed light on the mysteries surrounding the origin and potential evolution of these bursts, which are capable of releasing as much energy as the Sun makes in a thousand . per second.
The discovery was made for the first time with the help of a five-hundred-meter spherical radio telescope, the world’s largest single-plate telescope located in the southwestern Chinese province of Guizhou, during the Commensal Radio Astronomy FAST Survey.
Researchers from China, the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan and Australia, along with several observatories around the world, then collaborated to study this one-of-a-kind specimen.
Since their discovery in 2007, rapid radio bursts have been a hot topic of discussion in astronomical circles. These events are extremely difficult to detect, as many of them originate outside our galaxy and exist only for a very short time.
Using high-sensitivity telescopes, scientists have discovered about 500 FRB, most of which are one-off events. But 24 of them, for reasons that remain unknown, can repeat their explosions during a certain active phase and then take a break before the next active period.
“The fascinating part of the newly opened fast radio session is that it always seems to be active. He doesn’t pause like other recurring FRBs and just keep going, “said Lee Dee, chief scientist of FAST and lead scientist on the international team.
Sustainable high-speed radio emission, called FRB 20190520B, was discovered on May 20, 2019 by Niu Chenhui, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
“I find it a little romantic that this FRB opened on May 20, the unofficial day of love for Chinese netizens,” Niu said. “In a way, it’s like a love letter from space to the world’s astronomical community that draws us in to be amazed and to fall in love with what the universe has to offer.”
After Niu made the initial discovery, astronomers from the California Institute of Technology and the University of Tokyo are working together to find this unique celestial event and study its properties.
The source of FRB 20190520B is located in a dwarf galaxy about 3.3 billion light years from Earth. Scientists have discovered that the dwarf galaxy has the most complex electromagnetic environment of all known FRB host galaxies.
Niu said FRB 20190520B shares many similarities with the first open repetitive fast radio broadcast, called FRB20121102A, except that the former appears to be infinitely abundant and located in a more complex local environment.
“Is it possible that the newly discovered recurring FRB is the younger brother of the first?” Can FRBs evolve? “These questions are very interesting and can help us unravel more secrets behind these mysterious events,” he said.
Scientists have suggested that the sources of FRB could be remnants of supernova explosions, black holes, or an extremely magnetic and dense stellar object known as a magnetar. However, none of these candidates has been definitively confirmed by scientists.
Jonathan Katz, a professor of physics at the University of Washington in St. Louis who did not participate in the new study, said FRB 20190520B had been shown to be immersed in a dense cloud of gas and its constant bursts could be powered by a massive black hole. hidden nearby, which consumes gas at exceptional speed and creates tremendous heat in the process.
Duncan Lorimer, a professor at the University of West Virginia who discovered the first rapid radio burst, said the latest discovery challenged the conventional view of the FRB and their host circles.
Lorimer, who was not involved in the study, said he believed that FRBs could have multiple sources, and as the number of FRBs discovered increased, scientists would come closer to understanding this intriguing phenomenon.
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