New fast radio burst found in area that shouldn’t have any sources

Enlarge / Artist's conception of a high-energy burst coming off the surface of a magnetar. (credit: Goddard Space Flight Center)

Fast radio bursts were an enigma when they were first spotted. At first, each FRB followed the same pattern: a huge surge of energy in radio wavelengths that lasted less than a second-and then the burst was gone, never to repeat. We initially suspected FRBs might be hardware glitches in our detectors, but over time, the bursts' recurrence convinced us that they were real.

Since then, we've identified sources of repeated bursts and associated the FRBs with a source that produces energy outside the radio range. This ultimately helped us point the finger at a single source: magnetars, or neutron stars that have extremely intense magnetic fields.

Now, reality has gone and thrown a monkey wrench in that nice and simple explanation. A new repeating source of FRBs has been identified, and it resides in a location where we wouldn't expect to find any magnetars. This doesn't mean that the source isn't from a magnetar, but we have to resort to some unusual explanations for its formation.

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