An international team of astronomers, using the world’s largest radio telescope FAST in China, has obtained convincing evidence for one of the main hypotheses about the origin of fast radio bursts. This was reported by the Xinhua news agency.

What fast radio bursts are

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are extremely powerful but incredibly short pulses of radio emission lasting only a few milliseconds. In that brief moment, they release as much energy as the Sun emits in an entire week. The first such event was recorded in 2007, and since then FRBs have remained one of the most intriguing mysteries of modern astrophysics.

Repeating bursts are of particular interest. These come from the same point in the sky and have long suggested to scientists the existence of binary systems, where a star or a compact object such as a neutron star interacts with a companion. Until now, however, there had been no direct evidence to confirm this idea.

How FAST revealed the secret

Since June 2022, a group of astronomers has been continuously observing FRB 20220529, a source located about 2.5 billion light years away. The FAST telescope, whose collecting area is equivalent to about 30 football fields, made it possible to achieve record breaking observational detail.

For the first year and a half, the signals arrived in a stable pattern. In December 2023, scientists detected a characteristic signature indicating that a companion star was present near the FRB source and orbiting around it. This became direct proof that fast radio bursts are indeed produced in binary systems, where gravitational interaction, accretion processes, or intense magnetic fields create the conditions for such powerful emissions.

Why FAST is the key to solving the mystery

FAST is located in a natural karst depression in Guizhou Province. Its enormous size and exceptional sensitivity make it an ideal instrument for studying weak and extremely fast cosmic signals. It was precisely these capabilities that allowed researchers to detect subtle changes in the behavior of FRB 20220529 that had previously escaped other telescopes.

In brief

The Chinese radio telescope FAST has confirmed that fast radio bursts originate in binary star systems. Observations of FRB 20220529, located 2.5 billion light years away, revealed the presence of a companion star, which explains the repeating nature of many bursts. This is an important step toward understanding one of the most mysterious phenomena in the Universe.