Four articles – two of them are available here and here – published in the journal “Nature” report as many studies connected to a fast radio burst cataloged as FRB 200428, whose origin has been associated with a magnetar cataloged as SGR 1935+2154. The CHIME/FRB collaboration reported the observations conducted with the CHIME radio telescope, the second team of researchers reported the observations conducted with the STARE2 radio telescope, the third team reported the observations conducted with the FAST radio telescope, Bing Zhang of the University of Nevada, USA, published an article on the physical mechanisms of fast radio bursts.

An increase in activity from the magnetar SGR 1935+2154 was detected on April 27, 2020, by NASA’s Swift Space Telescope. The next day, the fast radio burst that was cataloged as FRB 200428 was revealed by various radio telescopes. It was an out of the ordinary event since the typical ones come from outside the Milky Way and are many times more intense. At the same time, other observatories detected X-ray and gamma-ray emissions from the magnetar, a neutron star with an extremely intense magnetic field. The double event with the peaks at the two ends of the electromagnetic spectrum immediately led to consider SGR 1935+2154 as a likely source, and the analyzes now published by different research teams in “Nature” confirm that suspicion.

The fast radio burst was detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2 (STARE2) and Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) radio telescopes. The signal was much more intense than any other from a magnetar in the Milky Way, but if it had come from another galaxy it would have been like many fast radio bursts detected so far. This lends weight to the theory that suggests that magnetars may be the sources of at least some of the fast radio bursts.

Paul Scholz of the Dunlap Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto of the CHIME/FRB collaboration, one of the authors of the article based on the observations conducted with the CHIME radio telescope, observed that, given the large gaps in energy and activity between the brightest and most active fast radio bursts and what was observed from magnetars, younger and more energetic magnetars may be needed to explain fast radio bursts.

Daniele Michilli of the McGill Space Institute in Montreal, Canada, also part of the CHIME/FRB collaboration and co-author of the related article, added that it will be necessary to precisely locate a fast radio burst in nearby galaxies to obtain definitive proof of the link with magnetars. Meanwhile, he and his colleagues are studying optical data from fast radio bursts that were already pinpointed and he expects to get the first results in the next few weeks.

In essence, progress was made in understanding fast radio bursts, but there’s still work to be done. Quality observations of other events will also help to understand the mechanisms of these bursts’ generation as there are different theoretical models.