11th of January 2018 |
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An extreme magneto-ionic environment associated with the fast radio burst source FRB 121102 |
An international team of astronomers has used two of the world's
largest radio telescopes (Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and the
Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia) to show that the mysterious
source of the only known repeating Fast Radio Burst—FRB 121102—is in
an astonishingly extreme and dynamic magneto-ionic environment. The
observations of FRB 121102 at 4-8 GHz show that the emission is almost
100 per cent linearly polarized, allowing the team to measure a very
large and variable Faraday rotation measure. This discovery suggests
that the source is in the close vicinity of a massive black hole, or
within a nebula of unprecedented power, within its host dwarf galaxy
at redshift 0.193. The results appear in this week's edition of Nature.
With a number of wide-field and wide-band radio observatories now
coming online, including ASKAP and the Ultra-Wideband Low receiver
being installed at Parkes, an increasing number of FRBs are expected
to be discovered in the coming year, and astronomers are poised to
answer more fundamental questions about their nature and
origin.
Reference: Michilli et al. Nature, in press,
The team included CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science members George Heald and Charlotte Sobey (joint appointment with ICRAR).
Image description: The 305-metre Arecibo telescope, in Puerto Rico, and its suspended support platform of radio receivers is shown amid a starry night. A flash from the Fast Radio Burst source FRB 121102 is seen: originating beyond the Milky Way, from deep in extragalactic space. Image credits: Image design - Danielle Futselaar; Photo usage - Brian P. Irwin / Dennis van de Water / Shutterstock.com |