An international research team led by Michael Kramer and Kuo Liu from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn/DE have studied a rare species of ultra-dense stars, so called magnetars, to uncover an underlying law that appears to apply universally to a range of objects known as neutron stars. This law gives insight into how these sources produce radio emission and it may provide a link to the mysterious flashes of radio light, Fast Radio Bursts, that originate from the distant cosmos. The results have been published on 23 November 2023 in Nature Astronomy.
Image: © Michael Kramer / MPIfR; Artistic impression of a magnetar, where a neutron star emits radio light powered by the energy stored in the ultra-strong magnetic field, causing outburst which are among the most powerful events observed in the Universe.