Image courtesy of Science
Photo Library/Alamys
Joel Kontinen
Radio bursts
are a phenomenon that surprise us. We don’t know the cause.
A bright
flash of radio waves from 3 billion years after the big bang is illuminating
parts of the universe that astronomers can’t normally see. Magnetars, which are
a kind of neutron star, may be the source of fast radio bursts.
A strange
flash of light from near the beginning of the universe could help astronomers
map difficult-to-see gas in between galaxies, like a flashbulb in a dark room.
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extremely short but powerful
blasts of radio-frequency light that have puzzled astronomers since they were
first spotted in 2007. A leading theory is that they are produced by extremely
magnetic neutron stars, called magnetars. But because we only know of a few
thousand examples in the whole universe, with most coming from galaxies that
are relatively close to the Milky Way, there is much we still don’t understand
about them.
Source:
Alex Wilkins 2025 Oldest fast radio burst ever seen sheds light on early star formation | New Scientist 15 August
Posts
