fast radio bursts<\/a> have puzzled astronomers. These fleeting, energetic pulses\u2014lasting less than a thousandth of a second, can release more energy than our Sun emits in days. Most are one-off events, but a handful repeat, offering rare opportunities for long-term observation. The FAST telescope, located in Guizhou, China, has become the world\u2019s most sensitive instrument for detecting and studying these cosmic signals.<\/p>\nUnder the leadership of Professor Bing Zhang from the University of Hong Kong, the research team focused on a repeating source known as FRB 220529A, about 2.5 billion light-years away. Over 17 months, the signal appeared consistent, until an unexpected change in 2023 transformed the study.<\/p>\n
\u201cFRB 220529A was monitored for months and initially appeared unremarkable,\u201d said Professor Bing Zhang. \u201cThen, after a long-term observation for 17 months, something truly exciting happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
This sudden twist led to one of the most revealing moments in FRB research, shifting the scientific conversation from isolated neutron stars to dynamic binary environments.<\/p>\n
The RM Flare: Tracing A Hidden Companion Star<\/p>\n
The turning point came when the team detected a rare polarization event, an abrupt change in the rotation measure (RM), which describes how polarized radio waves twist as they pass through magnetic plasma. Such changes can reveal shifts in the surrounding environment of an FRB source.<\/p>\n
\u201cNear the end of 2023, we detected an abrupt RM increase by more than a factor of a hundred,\u201d said Dr. Ye Li of the Purple Mountain Observatory and the University of Science and Technology of China, the paper\u2019s first author. \u201cThe RM then rapidly declined over two weeks, returning to its previous level. We call this an RM flare.\u201d<\/p>\n
This flare suggested that the FRB\u2019s environment was suddenly flooded by highly magnetized plasma, likely ejected by a nearby star.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne natural explanation is that a nearby companion star ejected this plasma,\u201d explained Professor Bing Zhang.<\/p>\n
Such an event is consistent with coronal mass ejections (CMEs), massive bursts of stellar material similar to those occasionally launched by our Sun.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch a model works well to interpret the observations,\u201d said Professor Yuanpei Yang of Yunnan University, a co-first author. \u201cThe required plasma clump is consistent with CMEs launched by the Sun and other stars in the Milky Way.\u201d<\/p>\n
This discovery confirmed that the FRB\u2019s source likely shares a complex binary relationship, where a magnetar, a highly magnetic neutron star, interacts with a nearby stellar companion.<\/p>\n
Decoding The Binary Origins Of Fast Radio Bursts<\/p>\n
By linking the RM flare to plasma activity from a companion star, the team provided the strongest evidence yet that some FRBs arise in binary systems. This contradicts the long-standing belief that they originate solely from isolated magnetars.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis finding provides a definitive clue to the origin of at least some repeating FRBs,\u201d said Professor Bing Zhang. \u201cThe evidence strongly supports a binary system containing a magnetar\u2014a neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field, and a star like our Sun.\u201d<\/p>\n
The study\u2019s publication in Science <\/a>marks a milestone for astrophysics, as it connects dynamic binary interactions to cosmic radio bursts. Observations were not limited to FAST; they were corroborated by data from Australia\u2019s Parkes Telescope, reinforcing the reliability of the findings.<\/p>\n\u201cThis discovery was made possible by the persevering observations using the world\u2019s best telescopes and the tireless work of our dedicated research team,\u201d said Professor Xuefeng Wu of Purple Mountain Observatory, the lead corresponding author.<\/p>\n
These results also align with a unified model recently proposed by Zhang and colleagues, suggesting that all FRBs originate from magnetars, but that those within binary systems have geometries and environments that make them repeat more frequently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An international team of astronomers has uncovered the first clear evidence that some fast radio burst (FRB) sources,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-239381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}