Photo: TOMASZ MIKIELEWLCZ/PHANTER MEDIA/PICTURE ALLIANCE / Deutsche Welle
Recently discovered and little-known Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) lasting milliseconds arise from distant cosmic locations. Some of these bursts burst only once and others are repeated. Why is still a mystery.
Now, a team of researchers, in the new study published in the Astrophysical Journal, suggests that the repeating type could be due to the interaction and unraveling of a planet with its magnetic host star.
According to the new hypothesis, after the strong gravitational pull of neutron stars rips away parts of the planet, the stellar wind of particles and radiation thrown out by the neutron star can interact with them and give rise to “really strong radio emissions,” Huang said.
Rapid bursts of radio
Rapid bursts of radio
Astronomers did not know about FRBs – which are millisecond-long bursts of radio waves that release, according to estimates, as much energy as the sun in three days – until 2007, when the first of this type was detected. Since then researchers have added hundreds of them to the count.
Researchers were able to confirm their hypothesis for at least two FRBs, the first discovered in 2016 which seems to repeat every 160 days and another that is repeated every 16 days. Despite this apparent new hypothesis, there is still much that is unknown about FRBs, and there is a lack of solid scientific evidence to come to any form of conclusive hypothesis about their existence.
However, no one can deny that the concept of it being a “star scream” of radio waves certainly provides a dramatic touch.
According to Science News, who interviewed the co-author of the study, the astronomer of Nanjing University, Yong-Feng Huang, repeatedly observing FRBs over several years to track any changes in the time between bursts could narrow down whether this hypothesis could explain the observations.
Edited by Felipe Espinosa Wang.