Asteroid Collision with Dead Star Sparks Universe's Brightest Explosion

Scientists have proposed a new explanation for the mysterious fast radio bursts (FRBs) that occur randomly throughout the sky and represent some of the most powerful explosions in the universe. They believe that when an asteroid gets torn apart by the intense gravity of a magnetar (a special kind of neutron star with the strongest magnetic fields in the universe), it releases a tremendous amount of energy that can power an FRB. This scenario can also explain the appearance of anti-glitches in magnetars. However, more research is needed to fully understand these deep-space signals.