Bizarre and eerie signals coming from Far distant regions of the cosmos are nothing
new to astronomers, but sometimes a new signal is detected that surprises and
baffles the astronomers tasked with finding its source occasionally a signal gives researchers
a vast Trove of information that allows them to delve deep into their Mysteries
Astronomers had just detected a very energetic object emitting
a fast radio burst that has spit out an insane number of radio bursts in a
very short period of time this series of signals came from an object named
Frb-20201124a which was first detected using China's super powered aperture spherical radio
telescope the super large radio telescopes aperture measures a staggering 500 meters
and is built into a natural depression in the landscape of southern China
foreign
bursts have been the subject of many studies over the past 15 years the information that
was used to find the first frb came from the year 2001. it wasn't until years later
that the information collected was analyzed by researchers and the first frb was discovered
but the source of these strange signals could not be ascertained from that data and scientists
spent countless hours over the next several years trying to figure out what type of object
could cause these types of radio signals in many of the instances astronomers detected
frbs the signal only came one time and there has been no way to reliably predict when a new round
of frbs is going to pass by Earth but researchers just caught a break as a repeating series of fast
radio bursts were detected in our own backyard just a short distance from us in the Milky Way
just a couple of years ago astronomers were able to find evidence for the first time pointing
towards at least one source of these mysterious signals a rapidly spinning neutron star neutron
stars are special remnants of already dead stars that are formed when the core of a massive star
collapses on itself after it has reached the end of its life a star's core is already incredibly
dense when it reaches the end of its life so it is already the source of a lot of gravitational
energy the gravitational force generated by its mass causes the core to collapse in on itself
smashing its matter together and creating one of the densest objects in the universe a neutron star
in fact the gravitational strength of a neutron star forces all of its atoms to smash together
fusing electrons with protons and creating a big ball of pure neutrons but figuring out what kind
of object can cause frbs is not enough in order to understand more about these frbs
scientists will need to find as many of them as possible especially the rare repeating frbs
one of the researchers an astronomer based out of Las Vegas Nevada was quoted saying it
is clear that frbs are more mysterious than what we had imagined more multi-wavelength
observational campaigns are needed to further unveil the nature of these objects
luckily for them this newly detected repeating frb has given astronomers
a huge amount of information they can use to understand more about these mysterious signals
these most recently detected frbs happens to fall into the category of rare bursts that repeat and
not only did this one repeat a few times it also went off nearly 2 000 times in just under
two months after this event ended astronomers detected a total of 1863 bursts each one of these
signals occurred over the course of a 91-hour observation period set up by the researchers
a plethora of information given from this unique event means that the astronomers studying it had
enough information to figure out where these radio signals originated and about their journey to us
all of that evidence is pointing to this set of frbs originating from a very special
type of neutron star called a magnetar located in a distant dwarf Galaxy not
too different from the Milky Way over 3 billion light years away from Earth
but what are magnetos and how did the researchers decide that the source of the frbs was a Magnetar
Magnetars are somewhat of a more recent discovery as they are quite a bit rarer than run-of-the-mill
neutron stars but scientists know that they are some of the most powerful objects in our universe
with some of the most violent environments around there is no consensus as to how some
neutron stars end up becoming magnetized it could have to do with their environment
or the star's makeup before it reached the end of their life but there is no doubt that their
fate is most likely decided by the time the Stellar core collapses in on itself they are
known for their rapid spinning which generates an incredibly strong magnetic field that can extend
far further than their physical body into the space around them astronomers believe that the
extreme magnetic fields of magnetars are unbridled they can get bent and twisted causing the magnetic
field lines to cross which can lead to a massive eruption of stored energy it is still unclear
if eruptions like these are the original cause of fast radio bursts but it is still a distant
possibility that is true all of this hyperactivity would explain how the largest sample of repeating
fast radio burst data ever detected was able to be recorded by astronomers and with more samples
of these electromagnetic signals they had more help figuring out where these signals came from
and what kind of environment they pass through on their journey to Earth's telescopes remember that
radio waves are just another form of light and light has a special property called polarization
that refers to its orientation in space as it travels because many frbs only emit signals once
and they then travel an insane distance to reach our telescopes on Earth it can be hard to pull all
that much information from them but with this many samples of polarized light the astronomers were
able to study their polarization many times over to refine their findings after that was done they
discovered that these radio waves originated in an environment dominated by an extremely
powerful magnetic field which lines up well with the leading theory of its source The Next Step
will task the researchers with finding a way to confirm what the evidence is suggesting so far
now that astronomers have narrowed their sights on a possible source for these signals they can
focus on finding more evidence corroborating their theory in addition to understanding more
about these fascinating objects there is a hope that more of these repeating frvs will be detected
over the next few years now that the search can be directed better thanks to this new information
figuring out how our universe and everything in it functions is an overreaching goal for much of
science whenever something that has been observed and not understood finally comes fully into the
light we come one step closer to becoming the masters of our own Universe thanks for watching
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