BEIJING, 10th October, 2023 (WAM) Scientists from Southwest China’s Guizhou Province have, for the first time, discovered a new fast radio burst (FRB) which is believed to have possibly emanated from a cosmic explosion that occurred 6 billion years ago. This groundbreaking discovery was facilitated by China’s 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST).according to global times, Xinhua reported today.Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are incredibly intense, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves that originate from mysterious and unidentified sources in the distant cosmos. These exceptional events generate an amount of energy in a mere thousandth of a second, equivalent to what the Sun produces in a year. Since 1987, certain radio telescopes on Earth have been capturing transient and intense radio wave pulses that hail from the far reaches of the cosmos.The recent discovery of the new FRB, dubbed FRB 20200317A, was made by the astronomical data processing team from the Key Laboratory of Information and Com
puting Science Guizhou Province at the Guizhou Normal University.This marks another monumental occasion where a local research institution in Guizhou has identified an FRB with the assistance of FAST. The findings were shared with the international scientific community through the Astronomer’s Telegram on September 23, 2023.Astronomers have estimated that this enigmatic cosmic burst transpired about 6 billion years ago, and was detected by China’s FAST on March 17, 2020.The observation data was collected from the FAST priority major project known as Commensal Radio Astronomy FAST Survey (CRAFTS), led by FAST’s chief scientist Li Di.Remarkably, this project represents the world’s first technology capable of simultaneously observing atomic hydrogen gas and pulsars, along with conducting a concurrent search for extraterrestrial civilizations.Upon systematic processing of the data captured by CRAFTS, the astronomical data processing team discovered the new FRB.The collaboration between Guizhou Normal University a
nd the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has yielded a research center established in 2014. Furthermore, by April 2021, the Key Laboratory of Information and Computing Science Guizhou Province at the Guizhou Normal University, which specializes in astronomical big data calculation and processing, has achieved significant research outcomes.
Source: Emirates News Agency