Fast Radio Bursts Appear to Be Caused by Young Neutron Stars

Highly detailed observations of two dozen Fast Radio Bursts discovered by the Westerbork telescope showed the flashes were likely emitted by young, magnetized and highly energetic neutron stars, as illustrated here. Credit: van Leeuwen/ASTRON

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are one of the greater mysteries facing astronomers today, rivaled only by Gravitational Waves (GWs) and Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs). Originally discovered in 2007 by American astronomer Duncan Lorimer (for whom the “Lorimer Burst“ is named), these shot, intense blasts of radio energy produce more power in a millisecond than the Sun generates in a month. In most cases, FRBs are one-off events that brightly flash and are never heard from again. But in some cases, astronomers have detected FRBs that were repeating in nature, raising more questions about what causes them.

Prior to the discovery of FRBs, the most powerful bursts observed in the Milky Way were produced by neutron stars, which are visible from up to 100,000 light-years away. However, according to new research led by the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), a newly detected FRB was a billion times more radiant than anything produced by a neutron star. What’s more, this burst was so bright that astronomers could see it from a galaxy one billion light-years from Earth! This finding raises innumerable questions about the kinds of energetic phenomena in the Universe.

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