A surprise discovery made by astronomers earlier this year has apparently allowed mankind to finally pinpoint the source of so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs), Quanta Magazine reports.
According to the media outlet, the discovery in question was made in April when the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) spotted a bright flash in a relatively close proximity to our planet.
"It lit up our telescope like a Christmas tree," said Paul Scholz, CHIME team member and astronomer at the University of Toronto, describing the event.
As astronomers around the world became aware of this development, the staff at Caltech examined the data from their own telescope and concluded that the burst in question was indeed comparable to fast radio bursts emanating from outside of our galaxy.
And then, subsequent research suggested that such signals may in fact be emitted by magnetars, with the media outlet stating that a "single lucky discovery" seems to have helped solve the mystery of FRBs.
"It’s not so often that you get a clue that is so striking that it seems to suddenly solve a big chunk of the puzzle," said Jason Hessels of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and the University of Amsterdam. "Normally we’re kind of chipping away at the problem as opposed to making such a giant leap forward."
Quanta Magazine points out, however, that a single event obviously cannot prove that all FRBs are produced by magnetars, though Brian Metzger, an astrophysicist at Columbia University, argued that the numerous types of FRBs might be explained by "different types of magnetars".