Repeating active fast radio bursts on a 16-day cycle will be of great help in revealing the origin of fast radio bursts
The text is translated as Chinese as follows:
Space remains mysterious. We still know very little about how space outside the Milky Way operates. Scientists make new discoveries about the mysteries of space almost every day — this time, for the first time, they've discovered a periodicly active rapid radio burst (FRB).
Fast radio burst FRB 181112 Imaginary map of reaching Earth through space (Source: Wikipedia)
What is a fast radio burst?
This isn't the first time scientists have observed a rapid radio burst signal from space. Fast radio bursts are arguably the most incomprehensible phenomena in the universe, and they are actually sudden bursts of radio waves in the distant universe, usually lasting only a few milliseconds.
Scientist Lorimer discovered the first record of a fast radio storm event in 2007 (Source: Wikipedia)
Fast radio bursts were first detected in 2007, when scientists found an archive of data from the Parks Radio Telescope in Australia. In 2015, seven more rapid radio bursts were detected, leaving astrophysicists at a loss, and the hypothesis was developed. In fact, it may be related to the collision of supernovae, neutron stars, black holes and dark matter, the final moments of Planck's evaporation, and even the manifestations of extraterrestrial life. For astrophysicists, the last hypothesis barely makes sense. It can be seen that the cause of fast radio bursts is still a mystery.
Parks Radio Telescope, Australia (Credit: Own Work, Photographer: Diceman Stenphen West)
A rapid radio burst repeated in a cycle of 16.35 days
In fact, this is the first time scientists have observed a fast radio burst with regular cycles, and more precisely, according to the study, scientists from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experimental Telescope (CHIME) project team have identified a fast radio burst with a period accurate to 16.35. The scientists named it FRB 180916.J0158+65, which comes from the edge of a galaxy about 500 million light-years away from us (SDSS J015800.28+654253.0).
The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Telescope (CHIME) is an ultra-high-performance interferometric radio telescope
(Source: chime-experiment)
So far, scientists have successfully detected two types of fast radio bursts: one that has been observed only once, and one that has been observed several times without regularity. The scientists made 409-day observations of frib 180916, and through this observation, they found that the signal burst was concentrated in a 4-day cycle and then entered a 12-day dormancy period.
Scientists currently know very little about periodic fast radio bursts, but with this new discovery, we can guess that this type of fast radio burst is not uncommon in the universe. In fact, it is likely that they are not observed because their signals are too weak. It is worth mentioning that the scientists of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experimental Telescope Project Group did not continuously observe the existence of FRB 180916, but the faithful reproduction of fast radio signals can prove the existence of this fast radio burst.
"The discovery of periodicity in a repetitive source of fast radio bursts is an important clue to understanding the nature of fast radio bursts and is of great significance for this area of research." Researchers from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experimental Telescope Project Group said so.
Victoria Kaspi, an astrophysicist and principal investigator of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experimental Telescope Fast Radio Burst Project, was named one of Nature's top ten scientific figures influencing the world in 2019 for his research contributions.
While scientists are still confused about fast radio bursts, a growing number of models and observations are providing new data, and conjectures about their causes are increasing. I believe that in the next few years, scientists will certainly be able to reveal the mystery behind these phenomena.
Some shots of fast radio bursts: FRB 190714 in the upper left; Upper right FRB 191001; Bottom left FRB180924; FrB 190608 at the bottom right (Credit: NASA, ESA)
Related knowledge
Fast radio bursts (FRB) are high-energy astrophysical phenomena of cosmological origin that present transient electrical pulses that last only a few milliseconds. The radiation flow density is generally between } }- } }[1]. Dispersion occurs during the passage of radio waves through the plasma, resulting in a time delay Delta t between the pulsed high-frequency component and the low-frequency component, which is related to the dispersion amount }}. Fast radio bursts have a much more dispersion than the Milky Way, indicating extragalactic origins.
Fast radio bursts are named in the order of "YYMMDD" based on the time and date of the signals recorded. For example, the first FRB to be discovered was the FRB 010621; the FRB of June 26, 2011 is called frb 110626[4].
BY: By Manon Fraschini
FY: Shaw
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