Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are mysterious flashes of radio waves originating outside our Milky Way galaxy. A team of scientists, jointly led by Caltech postdoctoral scholar Vikram Ravi and Curtin University research fellow Ryan Shannon, has now observed the most luminous FRB to date, called FRB 150807.
Phenomenally durable crystals called zircons are used to date some of the earliest and most dramatic cataclysms of the solar system, such as the late heavy bombardment that created hellish surface conditions on the young Earth and Moon about 4 billion years ago. Now a study of zircons from a gigantic meteorite impact in South Africa casts doubt on the methods used to date lunar impacts.
A team of scientists in Australia and the Netherlands has discovered powerful jets blasting out of a star system known as PSR J1023+0038 that consists of a super-dense neutron star in a close orbit with another, more normal star. It was previously thought that the only objects in the universe capable of forming such powerful jets were black holes.
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