Astronomers thought they understood fast radio bursts: A recent one calls that into question
Fast radio bursts are mysterious and brief flashes of radio emissions that were thought to be produced by magnetars, highly magnetized rotating neutron stars. Yet magnetars appear primarily in young star clusters. A repeating burst discovered last year has been pinpointed to the distant outskirts of an old but massive elliptical galaxy where, theoretically, such stars would long since have disappeared. Does this mean magnetars are not the source of FRBs? …read more
