Radio Burst Reveals the Secret of a Newborn Supernova ⚡ экспресс
Fast radio bursts are instantaneous radio flashes from deep space. In a thousandth of a second they release as much energy as the Sun emits in a month. One such burst, repeating, allowed scientists to peer into the epicenter of a recent stellar explosion. Astronomers tracked the signal for three years and noticed: every year it arrived faster because the cloud of charged particles — cosmic "smoke" — was dissipating. It was like light breaking through the thinning cloud of a firework.
But one day, through this smoke, a powerful magnetic flare pierced — as if an extra charge lit up inside the firework for a moment. Thus a newborn neutron star was discovered — a super-dense object the size of a city, left after the explosion of a supernova. Its magnetic field turned out to be so strong that, if you were nearby, it would rip the iron out of your blood. Unlike the steadily blinking pulsars, its radio bursts are chaotic. Exactly such objects were predicted by Fritz Zwicky. Now we can observe in real time how the site of a star's death breathes and evolves.
🎯 If the human eye could see radio waves, this burst would momentarily outshine the entire sky.
🎬 In science fiction, radio signals from space are often attributed to aliens, but these bursts are the death cries of stars.