Astronomers detect cosmic radio burst source in our own galaxy

Astronomers have found the source of powerful radio bursts in the universe. The source of radio bursts or energetic pulses was an age-old cosmic mystery, and now it has been solved.

Radio bursts happen in a matter of couple of milliseconds, and most of these radio bursts were visible to astronomers as coming from outside our galaxy. However, in April 2020, two dissimilar telescopes detected radio bursts inside our galaxy.

The two telescopes were of California doctoral student's set of handmade antenna and other was in a Canadian observatory.

These radio bursts were tracked down to a weird type of star called a magnetar which was 32,000 light-years away from Earth.

Magnetars are dense neutron stars, with 1.5 times the mass of our sun. These magnetars have enormous magnetic fields that crackle with energy, according to McGill University astrophysicist Ziggy Pleunis, a co-author of the Canadian study.

The discovery is important because astronomers managed to trace fast radio burst to a source which was emanating from our galaxy.

Astronomers say that there are around a dozen magnetars in our galaxy. The magnetic field around these magnetars is so strong that "any atoms nearby are torn apart and bizarre aspects of fundamental physics can be seen," astronomer Casey Law of the California Institute of Technology said.

These radio bursts aren't dangerous to humans, and the ones originating outside the Milky Way are more powerful than the radio bursts in this galaxy, according to Daniele Michilli, an astrophysicist at McGill and part of the Canadian team.