Radio source J1402+5347 1.4GHz light curves

Such scintillations are a unique probe of the micro-arcsecond structure of radio sources as well as of the sub-AU-scale structure of the Galactic interstellar medium. Weak scintillations (i.e. intensity modulation of a few per cent) on timescales of a few days or longer are commonly seen at centimetre wavelengths and are thought to result from the line-of-sight integrated turbulence in the Milky Way's interstellar plasma.

So far, only three sources were known that show more extreme variations, with modulations at the level of tens of per cent on timescales less than an hour. This requires propagation through nearby (d<~10pc) anomalously dense (n_e_>10^2^cm^3^) plasma clouds. Here we report the discovery with Apertif of a source (J1402+5347) showing extreme (~50%) and rapid variations on a timescale of just 6.5 minutes in the decimetre band (1.4GHz).