Reading: True / False / Not Given: Question 5

Fast radio bursts, first identified in 2007 through a re-analysis of archived radio telescope data, are intense pulses of radio emission that last only a few milliseconds yet release, in that brief interval, more energy than the Sun produces over an entire day. Despite their extraordinary power, fast radio bursts were initially treated with scepticism by parts of the astronomical community, partly because a handful of similar signals detected at the same observatory were later traced to microwave ovens operated by observatory staff during meal breaks, a mundane source of interference that took researchers several years to isolate and rule out as an explanation for the genuine astrophysical bursts.

The overwhelming majority of confirmed fast radio bursts are one-off events: a single pulse detected from a particular direction in the sky that has never repeated, despite repeated follow-up observations of the same location using more sensitive instruments. A smaller subset, however, has been shown to repeat, sometimes at semi-regular intervals spanning days or weeks, and this distinction has become central to current theories about the phenomenon's origin, since a source capable of repeating clearly cannot be destroyed by whatever process produces a single burst. Magnetars (neutron stars with extraordinarily powerful magnetic fields, trillions of times stronger than Earth's) are currently the leading candidate to explain at least the repeating bursts, following the detection in 2020 of a comparatively faint burst originating from a known magnetar within our own galaxy.

Locating the precise origin of a fast radio burst outside our galaxy remains technically demanding, since the signal must be captured simultaneously, or nearly so, by multiple widely separated radio telescopes in order to calculate its direction with sufficient precision, a technique that has nonetheless allowed astronomers to trace a growing number of bursts to specific host galaxies, several of which lie billions of light years away. Researchers now hope that, because the radio signal is subtly delayed and dispersed by its passage through intergalactic gas on the way to Earth, careful study of large samples of these bursts may eventually provide a new way to measure the quantity and distribution of ordinary matter dispersed throughout the space between galaxies. Matter that is difficult to detect directly because it is far too diffuse to observe through a telescope in visible light.

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage? Write TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN.

1. Fast radio bursts were first identified in 2007 by analysing archived radio telescope data.
2. A single fast radio burst releases more energy in a few milliseconds than the Sun produces in an entire year.
3. Some early candidate signals that resembled fast radio bursts were eventually traced to microwave ovens at the observatory.
4. The majority of confirmed fast radio bursts have been observed to repeat at regular intervals.
5. The total number of fast radio bursts detected worldwide to date is known precisely.
6. In 2020, a faint fast radio burst was traced to a magnetar located within our own galaxy.
7. All of the radio telescopes involved in detecting fast radio bursts are located in the southern hemisphere.
8. Locating the origin of a fast radio burst from outside our galaxy can be achieved using a single radio telescope acting alone.