Ever wondered what’s behind those lightning-fast cosmic radio flashes? China’s FAST telescope just dropped some major clues! 🔭💥
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are super-brief but ultra-bright radio signals from across the universe, blasting out as much energy in milliseconds as our Sun does in a week. Since their 2007 discovery, scientists have been chasing down where they come from.
Starting June 2022, a team led by astronomers at the Purple Mountain Observatory (CAS) used FAST— the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope tucked in Guizhou’s karst hills—to keep a close eye on a repeating FRB dubbed 20220529, about 2.9 billion light-years away.
They tracked something called the Faraday rotation measure (RM), which is basically a cosmic magnetism detector. For 18 months, RM barely budged. Then in December 2023, it suddenly spiked to 20 times its normal swings before settling back in two weeks. Mind-blowing, right? 🤯
This wild jump hints that a dense, magnetized plasma cloud zoomed through the sightline to Earth. Models say a lone neutron star can’t pull off that trick, but in a binary system—where two stars (or a star and a compact object) dance around each other—violent interactions or orbital geometry can naturally explain the spike.
Experts say this is the first direct evidence pointing to a binary origin for at least some repeating FRBs. It’s a huge step toward cracking one of astrophysics’ biggest mysteries. 💫
FAST’s mega sensitivity made this possible. With a dish spanning 500 meters (over 30 football fields!) and cutting-edge data processing, it sees fainter signals that other telescopes miss. Since going online in January 2020, FAST has been a powerhouse for studying pulsars, FRBs, and interstellar space.
What’s next? An upgrade is brewing: dozens of medium antennas will surround FAST to form a giant synthetic array, boosting both sensitivity and resolution. Plus, new telescopes in Delingha (15 m submillimeter) and even a terahertz dish at the South Pole are in the pipeline. More eyes on the sky, more cosmic secrets unlocked.
For young space fans in South and Southeast Asia: keep your eyes peeled, the universe has more surprises in store! 🚀✨
Reference(s):
China's radio telescope observations unravel origin of cosmic flashes
cgtn.com
