Radio burst originates from nearby spiral galaxy
Astronomers don't yet know exactly how the extremely luminous, fast radio bursts form. However, a new finding shows that they can occur in all types of galaxies – including the Milky Way system.
They last only a few milliseconds, appear suddenly all over the sky and have fantastic luminosities. We are talking about fast radio bursts, better known by their English name "Fast Radio Bursts" (FRB). Radio astronomers discovered the first FRB in 2006 in archive data from the Parkes radio telescope in Australia from 2001 (see SuW 8/2016, p. 21). Four years ago, in March 2016, a team led by Laura Spitler from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn announced that they had detected the first repeating FRB; they are referred to as FRB repeaters. By early 2020, more than 100 other FRBs had been found; most only appeared once. Only eleven flashed multiple times, including the recently registered FRB180916. J0158+65. The numbers indicate the date of discovery (September 16, 2018) and its coordinates in right ascension (1h58m) and declination (+65°). A team led by Benito Marcote from the Dutch Institute for Radio Astronomy ASTRON has now been able to determine the origin of the signals. It is only the fifth radio burst that astronomers have been able to assign to a home galaxy. …
