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in april 2020 astronomers detected an

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unusually bright and powerful radio

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signal never before recorded in our home

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galaxy

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the source is a magnetar a type of

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compact object with the strongest

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magnetic fields in the cosmos

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like pulsars and neutron stars magnetars

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are the crushed cores left behind when a

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massive star explodes but their super

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strong magnetic fields put them in a

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class by themselves

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the fields are up to a thousand times

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stronger than typical neutron stars and

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over 10 trillion times stronger than a

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refrigerator magnet

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they can rip molecules apart from

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thousands of miles away

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distort the shapes of atoms and store

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enormous amounts of energy on april 27th

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the magnetar named sgr 1935 produced a

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rapid-fire storm of short powerful x-ray

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bursts that lasted hours

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the activity first spotted by swift was

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also monitored by nasa's fermi gamma-ray

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space telescope and the nicer x-ray

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telescope on the international space

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station

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along with other space missions

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as the storm wound down early on april

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28th

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nicer recorded some 200 x-ray bursts in

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just 20 minutes

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later that day sgr 1935 fired off

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another x-ray burst

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this time though it was accompanied by

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something new

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a powerful pulse of radio waves lasting

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a thousandth of a second

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chime a radio telescope in british

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columbia led by several canadian

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universities discovered the signal and

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determined it came from the vicinity of

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sgr 1935

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another experiment called stair 2 and

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operated by caltech and nasa's jet

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propulsion laboratory saw an even

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brighter signal at different radio

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wavelengths

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since 2007 astronomers have been trying

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to understand the sources of powerful

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millisecond radio signals called fast

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radio bursts seen from other galaxies

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magnetars have been prominent suspects

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the duration and energy release of sgr

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1935's radio signal is closer to fast

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radio bursts than any other source

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for the first time astronomers saw

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magnetar in our own backyard produce a

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signal only previously seen in other

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galaxies

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the discovery strengthens the case that

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magnetars are responsible for at least

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some fast radio bursts

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[Music]

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data from nyser and fermi on x-ray

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bursts at the end of the storm

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showed that they differed from the one

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that coincided with the radio signal

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this event's characteristics set it

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apart from the other eruptions

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and further study may provide clues

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about how it also powered the radio

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burst

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radio waves from normal pulsars

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originate high above their surfaces

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exactly where and how we don't know

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a big eruption could launch a cloud of

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plasma to high enough that a radio burst

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could form

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never before have astronomers seen a

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fast radio burst so close to home

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it's just one more reason to watch the

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skies

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and to keep tabs on the strongest