Chinese scientists detect high-energy counterpart of fast radio burst
Chinese scientists have detected an X-ray burst associated with a fast radio burst (FRB) and confirmed that it originated from a magnetar in the Milky Way, according to the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The discovery was made on Saturday using the Gravitational Wave High-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) telescope.
Xiong Shaolin, principal investigator of GECAM and a researcher with IHEP, noted that this is the second time in history that humans have managed to detect a high-energy counterpart of an FRB.
"This discovery provides extremely valuable data for a deeper understanding of the radiation mechanism of FRBs and the outburst mechanism of magnetars," Xiong said.
China's Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), the country's space science satellite also known as Insight-HXMT, together with other space telescopes, detected the X-ray counterpart of an FRB for the first time in April 2020. Read More...
