Artwork illustrating a highly magnetised neutron star (a magnetar) orbited by asteroids. Magnetars
have exceedingly powerful magnetic fields, trillions of times stronger than Earth's own field and
even more powerful than regular neutron stars or pulsars. Recently, astronomers have suggested that
asteroids might be orbiting some of these stellar corpses, leading to the emission of so-called
fast-radio bursts (FRBs). The idea is that asteroids orbiting within the magnetar's wind - a stream
of fast particles emitted from its surface - carve a wake in the wind, leading to the generation of
an electric current around the wake. When the magnetar's wind crosses the wake, a magnetic
disturbance is created which generates an extremely intense and narrow beam of radio energy. In
2020, astronomers detected the first FRB from a magnetar - called SGR 1935+2154 - located within our
own galaxy. The entire event was over in a fraction of a second.