Since 2007, a series of flashes have been detected in space; until recently it was possible to know more about its origin.

For a long time a series of signals from a remote galaxy has puzzled scientists, after several investigations have found their possible point of origin.

These signals that appear as mysterious bright flashes, known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), are short and intense flashes of radiation waves and whose origin has been speculated since the first time they were detected, in the year of 2007.

As of April 2020, all FRBs observed by astronomers came from cosmological distances of hundreds of millions of light-years.

Only two years ago a team of astronomers led by Franz Kirsten of Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, in 2020, managed to track flashes originating in our galaxy as well.

IS IT RELATED TO UFOs?
The researchers are not 100% sure of the cause of the bursts, but they have several hypotheses that could explain their formation, including the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. Until now, however, magnetars have been considered to be the source of FRBs.

Magnetars, Kirsten explains, are neutron stars with extremely strong magnetic fields, which form after supernova explosions.

Scientists have agreed that magnetars are responsible for FRBs, since to produce an FRB it is necessary to have an enormous amount of energy, which can be quickly released and used in various processes.

“The only sources of this type that we know of are the magnetic fields of a cluster of neutron stars – these magnetars – or the gravitational energy of black holes,” he explains.

ITS ORIGIN, UNCLEAR

Kirsten points out that another possible explanation is the merger of two compact and old stars – white dwarfs and/or neutron stars – and the formation of a young object in the so-called kilonova phenomenon. However, the possibility of such an event occurring in our Universe is rather slim.

Despite the advances of specialists, the outbursts are the result of a phenomenon that is not yet fully understood, whether they are generated by an unusual magnetar or another celestial phenomenon.