December 14, 2024

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Epicurean Science & Tech

A fast radio burst’s not likely supply may possibly be a cluster of outdated stars

A fast radio burst’s not likely supply may possibly be a cluster of outdated stars

In a galaxy not so considerably away, astronomers have situated a surprising resource of a mysterious, fast radio signal.

The signal, a repeating quick radio burst, or FRB, was observed more than various months in 2021, making it possible for astronomers to pinpoint its area to a globular cluster — a tight, spherical cluster of stars — in M81, a large spiral galaxy 12 million light-weight-decades absent. The results, published February 23 in Mother nature, are challenging astronomers’ assumptions of what objects create FRBs.

“This is a really groundbreaking discovery,” says Bing Zhang, an astronomer at the College of Nevada, Las Vegas who was not involved in the analyze. “It is enjoyable to see an FRB from a globular cluster. That is not the favorited place men and women imagined.”

Astronomers have been puzzling about these mysterious cosmic radio signals, which generally previous much less than a millisecond, since their discovery in 2007 (SN: 7/25/14). But in 2020, an FRB was observed in our individual galaxy, supporting researchers decide one particular source should be magnetars — young, remarkably magnetized neutron stars with magnetic fields a trillion occasions as potent as Earth’s (SN: 6/4/20).

The new results occur as a surprise for the reason that globular clusters harbor only outdated stars — some of the oldest in the universe. Magnetars, on the other hand, are young leftover dense cores generally made from the loss of life of shorter-lived huge stars. The magnetized cores are assumed to get rid of the energy necessary to make FRBs soon after about 10,000 several years. Globular clusters, whose stars typical quite a few billions of years outdated, are substantially way too elderly to have experienced a adequately new young stellar demise to produce this style of magnetar. 

To pinpoint the FRB, astronomer Franz Kirsten and colleagues utilized a web of 11 radio telescopes spread throughout Europe and Asia to capture 5 bursts from the exact same source. Combining the radio observations, the astronomers were able to zero in on the signal’s origins, locating it was practically undoubtedly from within just a globular cluster.

“This is a incredibly remarkable discovery for the reason that it was entirely unpredicted,” claims Kirsten, of ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, who is primarily based at the Onsala Area Observatory in Sweden.

The new FRB could however be brought on by a magnetar, the team proposes, but a single that shaped in a unique way, such as from old stars prevalent in globular clusters. For instance, this magnetar could have been established from a remnant stellar main known as a white dwarf that had collected far too considerably materials from a companion star, causing it to collapse.

“This is a [magnetar] development channel that has been predicted, but it’s really hard to see,” Kirsten states. “Nobody has essentially seen these kinds of an party.”

Alternatively, the magnetar could have been fashioned from the merger of two stars — this kind of as a pair of white dwarfs, a pair of neutron stars or 1 of just about every — in shut orbit close to just one yet another, but this scenario is fewer likely, Kirsten says. It is also feasible the FRB resource isn’t a magnetar at all but a pretty energetic millisecond pulsar, which is also a kind of neutron star that could be identified in a globular cluster, but just one that has a weaker magnetic industry.

To date, only a couple FRB sources have been exactly pinpointed, and their spots are all in or shut to star-forming areas in galaxies. In addition to introducing a new source for FRBs, the results advise that magnetars established from something other than the demise of young stars could possibly be much more common than envisioned.

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