Cosmic Laser Blinks express
In a dense gas cloud where a star heavier than the Sun is forming, there is a tiny source of radio waves. It works like a laser: methanol molecules amplify the radiation, and we see a bright spot. But this spot behaves strangely: its brightness jumps up and down within a matter of hours.
Scientists monitored the source G33.641-0.228 from 2009 to 2016. They noticed that during a flare, the brightness changes within 0.3 days — about seven hours. Also, the light from the source turned out to be partially twisted. The fraction of such twisted light reached 20 percent, but during quiet periods it dropped to zero.
To explain this, scientists proposed the following picture. Behind the maser cloud, an explosion occurs — similar to a solar radio flare. This explosion generates twisted light. Then this light passes through the methanol cloud, and the cloud amplifies it like a sound amplifier. That is why we see both rapid flashes and twisted light at the same time.
This scheme explains why the twist disappears when brightness increases: the explosive light temporarily overpowers the cloud's own emission. Now astronomers have a key to unraveling the mystery of these blinking cosmic lasers.
Methanol masers are hundreds of thousands of times brighter than any human-made laser, even though all the energy comes from ordinary molecules in a gas cloud.
A similar principle of light amplification is described in Lem's novel "Solaris": the planet's ocean generates coherent radiation that scientists try to decipher.