The secrets of fast radio bursts will soon be explained?

Since their discovery a few years ago now, astronomers have called them fast radio bursts — or FRBs Fast radio bursts — Intrigue. They correspond to short but intense flashes of radio waves coming from deep space. Most of them only happen once. But some repeat themselves. This adds further to the mystery surrounding the origin of these fast radio bursts.

A fast radio blast like no other

A team from the SETI Institute (USA) has made a more detailed study of one of these recurring fast radio bursts, FRB 20220912 A. They published a report in the journal. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical SocietyDuring about 540 hours of observation, they observed at least 35 fast radio burst events. Enough to lead researchers to qualify it as such “Very active”.

Astronomers at the SETI Institute explain that, as with most recurring fast radio bursts, FRB 20220912A’s bursts tend to drift from high to low frequencies. But what they had not noticed before was a noticeable decrease in the central frequency of the explosions during the two months of observation. No current model of magnetars, neutron star collisions, or white dwarf mergers—the main candidates for the origins of fast radio bursts—can explain these properties.

More questions than answers about the secret of fast radio bursts

To add to the mystery, the researchers reported that no pattern could be found in the period between the bursts. But they still hope thatAllen telescope array (ATA), the instrument with which they carried out this work and which has the ability to record many frequency channels at the same time, will help them obtain valuable data that will ultimately help shed light on the origin of fast radio bursts.