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Since 2007, astronomers have known about a type of interstellar phenomenon called fast radio bursts, or FRBs for short. They are light emissions of radio waves that can generate more than 100 million times the power of the sun in a matter of milliseconds. Until recently, they were only observed in galaxies outside our own. But last April, astronomers had their first-ever chance to witness the FSB event in the Milky Way (via MIT News).
When astronomers first detected FRBs more than a decade ago, physicists speculated that they could be produced by a special class of neutron stars called magnetars that emit a particularly powerful magnetic field. Neutron stars, if you need an upgrade, are the remnants of a star that has become a supernova and has seen its core collapse in on itself. It turns out these suspicions are likely correct. In late April, astronomers recorded a series of FRBs that they suspect came from SGR 1935 + 2154, a magnetar located about 30,000 light-years from Earth. The radio telescope that had the best view of the phenomenon, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), did so at the limit of its range, leading to some uncertainties about the identity of the source.
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