New Delhi | Astronomers have discovered 25 new sources of repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs), or explosions in the sky that come from far beyond the Milky Way, bringing the total number of confirmed FRB sources to 50.
They said that their study may also bring scientists closer to understanding the origins of these mysterious phenomena.
The astronomers from McGill University, Canada, are part of an international team, whose study is published in The Astrophysical Journal.
The number of detected FRBs has grown exponentially in recent years because of radio telescopes such as CHIME, or Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment.
The research team used a new set of statistical tools they developed to go over the data gathered by CHIME between September 30, 2019, and May 1, 2021, to confirm whether what they were seeing were indeed FRBs.
"These new tools were essential for this study because we can now accurately calculate the probability that two or more bursts coming from similar locations are not just a coincidence. It should be very useful for similar research going forward," said Ziggy Pleunis, the first author of the paper and is a postdoctoral fellow at the university.
"These new discoveries will allow the scientific community to help answer a major open-question in the field: Do repeating and non-repeating FRBs originate from distinct populations?" said Aaron Pearlman, an FRQNT postdoctoral fellow at the university who also collaborated on the paper.
FRBs are considered one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy, but their exact origins are unknown. Astronomers do know that they come from far outside our Milky Way and are most likely produced by the cinders left behind after stars die.
One unexpected finding of this study, the researchers said, is that contrary to what has previously been thought, all FRBs may be repeaters rather than one-offs.
They said that it is simply that many repeating FRBs are surprisingly inactive, producing fewer than one burst per week, and that the apparently one-off FRBs have simply not been observed for long enough until now for a second burst to be detected.
Pleunis notes that this new research brings us closer to understanding what FRBs are.
"FRBs are likely produced by the leftovers from explosive stellar deaths.
"By studying repeating FRB sources in detail, we can study the environments that these explosions occur in and understand better the end stages of a star's life.
"We can also learn more about the material that's being expelled before and during the star's demise, which is then returned to the galaxies that the FRBs live in," said Pleunis.
