In June, scientists at the University of Manchester confirmed a fast radio burst called FRB 121102 was repeating on a 161-day cycle, predicting it would “wake up” and begin emitting again before the end of August. Last week, the scientists reported that the FRB had again become active, just as they predicted.
In their paper submitted to the arXiv.org pre-print distribution service, the scientists said the FRB would be active between July 9 and October 14 of 2020, give or take five days, then go dormant for a roughly 67-day period, before resuming activity from December 17, 2020, until March 24, 2021.
Fast radio bursts have mystified astronomers since their discovery in 2007. Because their wildly powerful energy bursts only last for a few milliseconds, discovering even basic information about them, including what interstellar phenomenon is causing them, has proven next to impossible. However, because FRB 121102 isn’t a one-shot burst, but repeats on a regular basis, further study into its nature has become possible, Science Alert explained.
The source of this particular FRB is a dwarf galaxy more than 3 billion light-years away, possibly coming from a particularly energetic form of neutron star called a magnetar. Some neutron stars, which are formed by collapsing supernovae that aren’t dense enough to form black holes, are also responsible for the regularly appearing radio signals that have earned them the name “pulsars.”