====== Fast radio bursts ======

>Lasting only a fraction of a second yet packing a phenomenal amount of energy, FRBs are brief radio flashes of unknown origin that appear to come from random directions on the sky. Though only a handful have been documented previously, astronomers believe that the observable Universe is rocked by thousands of these events each day."\\ \\ Source : //[[https://public.nrao.edu/news/pressreleases/2015-gbt-frb|National Radio Astronomy Observatory, US]]//

The bursts typically last only a few milliseconds, are wideband (from MHz to GHz), sometimes polarised, and are thought to originate predominantly outside our galaxy. Possible explanations for their source include:

  * Collapsing black holes or neutron stars
  * Blitzars (a spinning pulsar rapidly collapses into a black hole)
  * Hyperflares of magnetars (a neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field)

However :

>__None of the models put forward seem perfectly adequate. Not one really explains all the observations.” __\\ \\ Source; [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5380068/|PNAS 2017]]

More info //[[http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/pressreleases/2014/8|Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy]]//

//Note:// A 2017 study from Harvard put forward the imaginative idea that FRBs may be signs of Alien Civilisation's use of photon-drives to propel their spacecraft . . . though the authors end with the statement that the purpose of their paper includes //"at the very least, the important purpose of enabling astronomers to rule it out"// . . . See :  [[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1701.01109.pdf|Fast Radio Bursts from Extragalactic Light Sails]]

=== Update August 2017 : ===

Project //Breakthrough Listen// (UC Berkeley)

> [...] has detected 15 fast radio bursts emanating from the mysterious 'repeater' FRB 121102."\\ \\  [[https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/News/13|Source]]

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Also see [[content:physics:cosmology:fbots]]