Two neutron stars — these are ultra-dense remnants of dead stars, each the size of a city but heavier than the Sun. Their existence was predicted back in 1934 by Fritz Zwicky. A teaspoon of this matter weighs billions of tons. When two such objects draw close before merging, their magnetic fields twist and snap like taut strings. This produces powerful gamma-ray flashes and rapid radio pulses — a farewell symphony accessible to observers minutes before the catastrophe.
These signals, as it turns out, explain the enigmatic fast radio bursts — millisecond-long pulses from deep in the universe that have puzzled scientists until now. Astronomers will be able to aim telescopes in advance and witness the very moment of merger. Many neutron stars, by the way, manifest as pulsars — cosmic lighthouses discovered by Jocelyn Bell Burnell, and the merger itself generates gravitational waves — ripples in spacetime itself.
It turns out that fast radio bursts, which have baffled astronomers for decades, may be born precisely from the magnetic 'strings' between merging neutron stars.