Las Vegas City Wire

A University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) astrophysicist was among a group of scientists that pinpointed the location of fast radio bursts (FRBs) from space.

Scientists including Bing Zhang of UNLV are intrigued by electromagnetic radio waves that have been pulsing for over 15 years, according to a news release from the university. The collaboration of international researchers was spearheaded by Heng Xu, Kejia Lee, Subo Dong from Peking University, and Weiwei Zhu from the National Astronomical Observatories of China. The scientists found a series of cosmic radio bursts – 1,863 bursts – during 82 hours spanning 54 days from a source they labeled FRB 20201124A. The energy released by one fast radio burst – a millisecond-long cosmic explosion – is equal to the sun's annual output.

"This is the largest sample of FRB data with polarization information from one single source," Lee said in the news release.

The findings were discovered through use of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in China, the news release noted. These findings cast doubt on the conventional wisdom regarding the physical makeup and primary source of FRBs. The information can be found in the Sept. 21. issue of the journal "Nature."

Zhang serves as founding director of UNLV's Nevada Center for Astrophysics.

"These observations brought us back to the drawing board," he said in the news release. "It is clear that FRBs are more mysterious than what we have imagined. More multi-wavelength observational campaigns are needed to further unveil the nature of these objects."

Zhang said the surroundings of the FRB source involved a magnetized environment that had never been imagined before.

"I equate it to filming a movie of the surroundings of an FRB source, and our film revealed a complex, dynamically evolving, magnetized environment that was never imagined before," he said. "Such an environment is not straightforwardly expected for an isolated magnetar. Something else might be in the vicinity of the FRB engine, possibly a binary companion."