You would think they would have been harder to miss: unimaginably powerful bursts of cosmic radiation, so bright they can blast our radio telescopes from billions of light-years away and occurring perhaps as often as a thousand times a day.
But fast radio bursts (FRBs) went undetected until 2007, and despite a decade and a half of investigation, remain one of the most enticing mysteries in astrophysics. Recent studies are providing new and promising hints about their origins, while at the same time illustrating why these cosmic firecrackers are so confounding in the first place.
When I first started hearing about FRBs in seminars, the big question wasn't so much: "What astrophysical source is causing this?", but rather: "Are we sure this isn't just a blip in the machine?" After all, whatever it was, it looked pretty suspicious.
An FRB is a burst of radio radiation that lasts around a millisecond and spreads out in frequency in a way that looks an awful lot like a blip from a pulsar (a rapidly spinning core of a collapsed massive star, known as a neutron star, that's left after a supernova explosion).
Bu hikaye BBC Science Focus dergisinin February 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye BBC Science Focus dergisinin February 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
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HOW CAN I TELL IF I'VE GOT HIGH CORTISOL LEVELS?
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THE LUNGFISH
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Should we scrap daylight saving time?
Most of us look forward to the extra hour we get in bed every October, but researchers argue that changing the clocks twice a year harms our health
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