Astronomers detected a mysterious fast radio burst in 2022 and its origins have remained a secret ever since. Such radio signals are common in the universe and have often amazed experts. These signals are extremely bright despite normally lasting merely a thousandth of a second. The said radio signal has now been traced to a surprising object millions of light-years away.

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Rotating neutron stars, known as pulsars, are considered the likely origin of radio bursts. They are like cosmic lighthouses, sending out bright flashes of light while rotating at great speeds.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have revealed that the radio burst came from a neutron star’s ‘magnetosphere’, or its magnetic field.

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This dying star was some 200 million light-years away in a distant galaxy and had just exploded. So the radio burst basically came from the other side of the universe. The burst came from the magnetic field around its core. 

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Such radio bursts are not known to originate from the magnetosphere of a star. So this finding assumes greater importance in the field of astronomy as the MIT team has dubbed it the first conclusive evidence of a burst coming from the magnetosphere.

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Radio burst hid more secrets

The light beam reflected also had a strange pattern. It was in the shape of a smooth S-curve, which scientists deduced means that the burst was twisting and moving.

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The revelations did not stop here, and the neutron star held more surprises. The MIT team found that the distance between the radio burst and the surface of the dying star was merely 10,000 kilometres. That's tiny when you consider how large the cosmos and the bodies residing in it are.

Radio bursts in the universe

Radio bursts have baffled astronomers for years. Recently, they discovered the longest radio signal in space which seemed to be coming from a neutron star or a unique white dwarf. Such signals only last for less than a second, but in this case, the radio signal recorded had a cycle that was nearly an hour long. 

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However, neutron stars are not the only source of radio signals in space. NASA discovered that our sun has been sending out similar signals. These waves were first noted years ago and the CubeSat Radio Interferometry Experiment, or CURIE, was launched from the  European Space Agency Ariane 6 rocket in early July last year to study them. 

When coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and solar flares are released by the sun, they also produce mysterious radio signals. But the exact point of origin has never been identified.