An artist’s impression of a magnetar generating a high-energy flare showing the collapsed star’s complex magnetic field and a beamed polar emission. Image: McGill University Graphic Design Team For the first time, astronomers have detected a fast radio burst, or FRB, in the Milky Way, a titanic outburst of X-rays and radio waves that was generated in a fraction of a second. Until now, FRBs were only seen in other galaxies and their sources were a mystery. Now, astronomers at multiple institutions have pinpointed the FRB spotted in the Milky Way and conclude it most likely was generated by a magnetar, a super-magnetised neutron star with many times the mass of the Sun. The magnetic field generated by a magnetar can be a thousand times more intense than that of a typical neutron star.