(ORDO NEWS) — An international team of astronomers has studied mysterious flashes called fast radio bursts in the spiral galaxy M81.
The results, published in the journal Nature, help explain the nature of energy emissions, whose causes are still unknown.
Scientists have observed the source of fast radio bursts FRB 20200120E, which was discovered in 2020 in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major.
They managed to find out that the source is located in the globular cluster of the M81 galaxy at a distance of about 6.5 light years from the center of the cluster.
Globular clusters are made up of old stars, challenging the popular belief that radio bursts are caused by young magnetars, neutron stars with extremely strong magnetic fields.
The authors suggest that FRB 20200120E is a neutron star with a strong magnetic field, formed either as a result of the accretionary collapse of a white dwarf or as a result of the merger of compact stars.
It is known that compact binary systems are actively formed inside globular clusters.
Fast radio bursts occur within a few milliseconds and are accompanied by the release into outer space of a huge amount of energy – such as the Sun emits for several tens of thousands of years.
Most researchers attribute this phenomenon to natural causes, such as supernova explosions, neutron star collisions, active black holes or magnetars.
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