Rarely seen prelude to supernova captured by James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a never-before-seen radio signal that offers insights into the mystery of uncharted deep space. The signal, known as a Fast Radio Burst (FRB), is a bright flash of radio light lasting for a few milliseconds and originating from beyond the Milky Way. The discovery sheds new light on a highly active repeating FRB signal behaving differently than anything previously detected.
A team of astronomers, led by Sofia Sheikh of the SETI Institute in California, observed 35 FRBs from a single source, FRB 20220912A, over a two-month period. Their observations revealed a fascinating pattern. Most repeating FRBs gradually get lower in pitch as they go on, but FRB 20220912A is different. It has a never-before-seen change in pitch that sounds like a cosmic slide-whistle when the data is converted into a sound clip using a xylophone.
The high-pitched notes are at the beginning of the clip, while the low-pitched notes are at the end, like someone playing a xylophone and repeatedly hitting the lowest note, scientists at the SETI Institute report.
Astronomers believe some FRBs are caused by a type of neutron star called a magnetar. These neutron stars have very strong magnetic fields and are the cores of dead stars. However, no existing model can explain all of the properties that have been observed so far.
The latest research is another step forward in the quest to unlock the secrets of FRBs, which generate as much energy in a thousandth of a second as our Sun does in an entire year. With the discovery of the highly active repeating FRB signal, astronomers are narrowing down the potential sources of these mysterious bursts, which could include extreme objects such as magnetars, colliding neutron stars, or merging white dwarfs.
The groundbreaking findings provide both confirmation of known FRB properties and the discovery of new ones, marking an exciting advancement in our understanding of the cosmos.