This is the first fast radio burst known to have a steady beat

The CHIME radio telescope in British Columbia (pictured) found that a repeating source of radio waves from deep space has a brief window of activity about every 16 days.
CHIME COLLABORATION

By Christopher Crockett
FEBRUARY 7, 2020

A blast of radio waves from deep space appears to be on a 16-day cycle

A periodic flurry of radio waves from some unknown object in deep space could help astronomers figure out what’s triggering similar radio bursts in other galaxies.

Since 2007, researchers have cataloged over 100 fast radio bursts, or FRBs, coming from every direction in the sky. But it’s unknown what causes these radio bursts. Only 10 have been seen to repeat (SN: 8/14/19), and none of those had exhibited any sort of steady tempo — until now.

One of the known repeaters has a relatively brief window of activity about every 16 days, researchers report January 28 at arXiv.org. That means something about the source or its environment is reliably controlling the burst activity, a potential clue to the true nature of these enigmatic objects.

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