Over Thousand Fast Radio Bursts Detected in Galaxy

More than 1,600 Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) were produced from 121102 over a 47-day period in 2019, more than all the previously known quick flashes of energy combined, according to an international team of researchers.  Experts led by those at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ National Astronomical Observatories identified 1,652 Fast Radio Bursts between August 29 and October 29, 2019.

This independent group of bursts were detected over a span of 59.5 hours. The highest cadence during the burst saw a peak of 122 Fast Radio Bursts over the span of one hour, the highest rate of any observed so far.

Fast Radio Bursts are very short but very intense pulses of radio waves that can last as little as one-thousandth of a second, while producing as much energy as the sun does in one year. Dr Peng Wang, co author of the study said that the total energy of this burst set already adds up to 3.8% of what is available from a magnetar and no periodicity was found between 1 ms and 1000 s, both of which severely constrains the possibility that  121102 comes from an isolated compact object.

The researchers’ discovery was made using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST).  They were first discovered in 2007, but their origins remain unknown to astronomers. Fast Radio Bursts 121102, which was discovered in 2012, is one of the few  known to have a repeating signal.