Weird cosmic object keeps exploding over and over again, and scientists don't know why

[Judi Lynn]

By Adam Mann about 2 hours ago

An odd fast radio burst has been seen exploding over and over.



(Image credit: Stocktrek Images/Getty Images)

Astronomers have watched a mysterious cosmic object shoot out 1,652 blasts of energy over a short period of time. Though researchers are still stumped as to what caused the repeated eruptions, they hope the observations will help them get closer to an answer.

The entity in question is called a fast radio burst (FRB), an enigmatic phenomenon first observed in 2007. FRBs produce pulses in the radio part of the electromagnetic spectrum; these pulses last only a few thousandths of a second but produce as much energy as the sun does in a year.

Some FRBs emit energy just once, but several — including an object called FRB 121102, located in a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years away — are known to repeat their bursts. Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in China, a team of scientists decided to conduct an extensive study of this repeating FRB.

The campaign was meant to just gather routine data about this particular entity, Bing Zhang, an astrophysicist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told Live Science. “Initially, it was just stamp collecting.”

More:
https://www.livescience.com/cosmic-object-exploding?utm_source=notification

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Lots of weird stuff out there.

I just finished reading How To Die In Space by Paul M. Sutter. It's a delight, because Sutter has a wonderfully snarky way of expressing things and addressing the reader directly. It's also made clear that there are lots and lots of ways to die in space, especially once you get out of the Solar System.

If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it.

[Grokenstein]

2. Galactus needs to lay off the spicier planets.

[Sancho]

3. Just a guess..