Astronomers at MIT and across Canada and the United States have detected a strange and persistent radio signal from a distant galaxy that blinks with surprising regularity. The signal is classified as a fast radio burst (FRB), an intense burst of radio waves from an unknown astrophysical source that typically lasts a few milliseconds at most. However, this new signal lasted as long as 3 seconds, which is about 1000 times longer than the average duration of FRBs. Within this window, the team detected that the burst of radio waves showed a clear periodic pattern that repeated every 0.2 seconds, similar to the beating of a heart. The researchers labelled the signal FRB 20191221A, and it was the longest-lasting FRB detected to date, with the clearest periodic pattern. The source of the signal is located in a distant galaxy, billions of light-years from Earth. The exact source may remain a mystery, though astronomers suspect the signal may come from a radio pulsar or a magnetar, both types of neutron stars — extremely dense, rapidly spinning giant star collapsed cores. “There aren’t many things in the universe that emit strictly periodic signals,” said Daniele Michilli, a postdoctoral fellow at MIT’s Caffrey Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “The examples we know of in the Milky Way are radio pulsars and magnetars, which spin produces a lighthouse-like emission of light. We think this new signal may come from a ‘doping’ magnetar or pulsar.”
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