A seemingly ordinary flicker has recently revealed the source of a mysterious cosmic phenomenon

In 2007, AstronomersAstronomers A surprising phenomenon was discovered. Extremely energetic and short bursts of radio waves. These they immediately qualified as Fast Radio Bursts – or FRBs. Fast Radio Burst – Go harder than thousandths of a second. But the energy they carry can reduce the energy of the entire galaxy. Since then, researchers have detected thousands of these FRBs. Some are coming from our Milky Way. The other, no less than 8 billion light years away.

Astronomers believe that only very compact objects can be the source of such high-speed radio burst emission. Of Neutron starsNeutron stars or Black holesBlack holes. But the topic remains controversial. And today, researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, United States) do, in The matterThe mattera real revelation.

High-speed radio originates in the magnetosphere of neutron stars.

In two studies published in the journal The naturethey explain how they analyzed the fast radio burst detected in 2022. Code name FRB 20221022A. from a DurationDuration In just 2 milliseconds, it was able to locate itself in a galaxy about 200 million light-years from our Earth. But, thanks to a new technique, researchers were able to locate the exact spot where the explosion took place. A region that lies within 10,000 km of a neutron star. It is barely more than the distance that separates Paris from Los Angeles. “Like being able to measure the width of a propellerADNADN At the level of LuneLune»highlights Professor Kiyoshi Masui of K. The bodyThe body in a press release from MIT.

According to astronomers, it is beyond all evidence that it came from the FRB. Magnetic sphereMagnetic sphere of this neutron star. “What’s interesting here is that we discovered that they have stored energy. Magnetic fieldMagnetic field Most intense thanUniverseUniversecan generate twists and rearrange itself in such a way that it can be emitted in the form of radio waves that we can see so far.”explains Kiyoshi Masui.

This confirms one of the hypotheses that astronomers have made: that the source of high-speed radio bursts is located in a turbulent magnetosphere near a compact object. Oh MagnetMagnet . A type of neutron star – itself made up of the very dense remnants of the core of a massive star SupernovaSupernova – whose external magnetic fields are 1000 times stronger than normal neutron stars. Another thought was that FRBs could come from much farther away than these objects. and be produced by a shock wave as it propagates.

A fast radio burst that flickers says a lot about its source.

It was the phenomenon of scintillation that allowed the researchers to draw conclusions. which occurs when light from a small, bright source passes through a medium. He who makes the stars in our sky shine after the light has passed. GazGazThe smaller or farther away an object is from a galaxy, the brighter it shines. Large or nearby objects – such as the planets in our solar system – do not shine.

First, the researchers showed that the light from FRB 20221022A was strongly polarized, with its source rotating after the polarization angle. And that’s exactly the case with magnetars, these strongly magnetic neutron stars, so, and that also spin on themselves. Astronomers then observed that the high-speed radio glow passed through the gas that made up its host galaxy. “This means that the FRB is probably only hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the source. », explains Kenzie Namo, researcher. Kawli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Researchyou mine “It’s very close. For comparison, if it came from a shock wave, we’d expect the signal to be tens of millions of kilometers away. And we wouldn’t see it flickering. »

From now on, astronomers plan to apply their technique to other FRBs. To determine whether subcompact objects occur in the same regions or different physics may cause these bursts.