Fast radio bursts likely to be caused by magnetars

​By studying the site of a spectacular stellar explosion seen in April 2020, a team of scientists including many from the Anton Pannekoek Institute of the University of Amsterdam have used four European radio telescopes to confirm that astronomy’s most exciting puzzle is about to be solved. Fast radio bursts, unpredictable millisecond-long radio signals seen at huge distances across the universe, are generated by extreme stars called magnetars – and are astonishingly diverse in brightness.