Mystery of Radio Bursts is Explained by Scientists

STATES CHRONICLE – For years, radio wave bursts coming from outer space perplexed astronomers, but now mystery of radio bursts is explained by scientists.

These blasts of radio waves usually appear in the sky at random and last only a few milliseconds. The great mystery is the cause of their occurrence. Moreover, scientists are trying to make further in depth analysis, but given how quick they move, it is very hard. However, they did manage to shed some light upon the matter by finding some clues that suggest the causes of the bursts can be supernova remains, a star’s transformation into a nebula or a very dense interior of a galaxy.

What made them draw this conclusion was the fact that they observed that the bursts’ energy was passing through some sort of very dense magnetic field. It seems that this phenomenon narrows down the options concerning the source of the radio wave. This is why, astronomers believe that the radio wave bursts are likely caused either by a star forming nebula or by the remnants of a supernova.

These fast radio bursts, or for short FRBs, have a very high frequency in time and happen some billion light-years away from Earth. For example the last identified FRB was located at about six billion light years from our planet. Since this type of phenomenon happens so far and so quickly, astronomers need to use a data-mining software to help them detect the radio bursts and separate from all the other data gathered by observatories.

It seems that this last FRB that astronomers managed to spot had an element they couldn’t see before, which helped them get a better understanding of the cause of these radio bursts. The said element was the fact that the blast passed through two distinct screens. By screens, scientists refer to regions of ionized gas. The first and strongest screen was located very close to where the radio bursts were ‘born’, which is less than 100,000 light years away. This indicates that the area of the source is either surrounded by a nebula or it could be the center of a galaxy.

Since this discovery has shed little light on the matter of FRBs, scientists are doing further research in order to have a better understanding of why and how these phenomena occur.

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