Question: Recently an international group of scientists identified the blast as a fast radio burst first time somewhere in the-
a) Andromeda Galaxy
b) Milky Way
c) Sun
d) Whirlpool Galaxy
Answer: (b)
Related Facts:-
- An international group of scientists identified the blast as a fast radio burst first time somewhere in the Milky Way.
- On 04 November 2020; an article regarding this discovery was published in the general Nature.
- Canada’s CHIME telescope was the first to detect the radio burst on April 28, 2020.
- On the same date NASA also spotted a mixture of X-rays and radio signals (a kind of explosion) in the Milky Way (Milky Way) that had never been seen before.
- Significantly, this explosion also includes the first event seen within the galaxy, the Fast Radio Burst- FRB.
- Detection:
- With NASA’s Wind Mission’ several satellites detected the exploding X-ray part at the same time and the radio component was discovered by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment- CHIME.
- CHIME is a radio telescope located at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in British Columbia.
- CHIME is headed by McGill University in Montreal, University of British Columbia and University of Toronto.
- NASA-funded project called the Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2- STARE2 has also detected the radio explosion (FRB) seen by CHIME.
- STARE2 is operated by Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
- And its team determined that the burst energy was equal to FRBs.
- What is Fast Radio Burst- FRB:
- FRBs are bright bursts of radio waves that last in milli-seconds, as a result it is difficult to detect and determine their position in the sky.
- The first FRB was discovered by scientists in the year 2007.
- Radio waves can be generated by celestial bodies with changes in magnetic fields.
- From where these FRB originate:
- The source of FRB discovered in the Milky Way in April 2020 is a very powerful ‘Magnetic Neutron Star’, referred to as a magnetar.
- It is called SGR 1935 + 2154 or SGR 1935 which is located in the constellation Vulpecula.
- It is about 14000 – 41,000 light years away from Earth.
- The FRB was part of one of Magnetar’s largest explosions, with an X-ray explosion rate of less than a second.
- On the other hand, the ‘radio explosion’ was in the thousandth of a second Magnetar:
- Neutron stars having very powerful magnetic field are known as a magnetar.
- Magnetic field of magnetar can be 10 trillion times stronger than a magnet of the refrigerator and a thousand times stronger than a typical neutron star.
- Neutron stars are formed when the core of a massive star passes through the phase of gravity and reaches the end of its life.
By – Rajesh Tripathi