Astronomers have identified a mysterious new fast radio burst (FRB) that beats at regular intervals, much like a heart. The signal, dubbed FRB 20191221A, is the longest-lasting FRB ever discovered and has a periodic pattern, repeating every 0.2 seconds for up to three seconds. That’s about 1,000 times longer than other FRBs like it, and it’s the first time the signal itself is periodic. The researcher and his colleagues are now hoping to use the signal’s regular beats as a way to measure the rate of the expansion of the universe. The new signal may have emanated from a magnetar, the highly energetic and spinning remains of a collapsed star, which is a million times brighter than the neutron stars we’ve discovered so far. . . .
Read more at futurism.com
