Latest detection of fast radio burst indicates magnetar origin

Nature : First discovered in 2007, fast radio bursts (FRBs) have puzzled astronomers. Because the high-energy, transient pulses last only a few milliseconds and come from random directions, associating them with any known astronomical event has been difficult. To date, only a handful have been reported, and by only two facilities: the Parkes Observatory in Australia and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Now Kiyoshi Masui of the University of British Columbia in Canada and colleagues have found an example of an FRB in data taken from a third facility, the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. In their paper published in Nature, the researchers say that the burst’s spiral pattern suggests it was probably emitted in a plasma-filled region with a strong magnetic field—likely by a young neutron star. To learn more about these ephemeral phenomena, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment is being built and will begin operations next year.