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Space Science

Astronomers Discover 13 New Fast Radio Bursts From Deep Space (nationalgeographic.com) 57

Posted by msmash from the what's-happening?! dept.
Astronomers have detected 13 high-speed bursts of radio waves coming from deep space -- including one that regularly repeats. While the exact sources remain unknown, the new bevy of mysterious blasts does offer fresh clues to where and why such flashes appear across the cosmos. From a report: Fast radio bursts, as they are known to scientists, are among the universe's most bizarre phenomena. Each burst lasts just thousandths of a second, and they all appear to be coming from far outside our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Since these bursts were discovered in 2007, their cause has remained a puzzle. Based on estimations of the known range of their frequencies and an understanding of activity in the universe, scientists expect that nearly a thousand of them happen every day. But to date, only a handful have been found.

Now, a team using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, or CHIME, has announced the additional 13 new detections, including an especially rare repeating burst. Until now, only one other repeating fast radio burst was known to exist. "The repeater," as it being called, and its 12 counterparts came from a region of space some 1.5 billion light-years away, the team reports today in the journal Nature. All 13 new bursts have the lowest radio frequency yet detected, but they were also brighter than previously seen fast radio bursts, leading the team to think the low frequency has something to do with the sources' environment.
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Astronomers Discover 13 New Fast Radio Bursts From Deep Space More

Astronomers Discover 13 New Fast Radio Bursts From Deep Space

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  • ...a rickroll. Alas. Pretty interesting though.

  • Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? (Score:3)

    by tsuliga ( 553869 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @04:49PM (#57933672)

    I would like to know if this is a natural phenomenon or is it possible it is from sentient beings. There is no indication in the summary.

    So if it is from a natural phenomenon, please indicate this in the summary and the discussion will proceed in a normal scientific manner.

    Otherwise this is an extremely important discovery - mainly the repeating signals.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )

      The only reason we have to conclude that it may not be natural is that we don't really have a concrete natural explanation for it yet.

      I imagine that the safe money is still on it being natural, however.

    • I would like to know if this is a natural phenomenon or is it possible it is from sentient beings.

      I'm sure the guys who detected the signals would like to know that too. Alas, there's probably no way to determine whether a 1.5 gigayear old signal is artificial. So, let's go with "natural" till we have more information.

      Which we ought to have in 3,000,000,000 or so years....

    • Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TFlan91 ( 2615727 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @05:01PM (#57933740)

      This sounds more akin to a neutron star spinning on an axis - especially "the repeater".

      Who's to say this isn't just another type of neutron star to add to the list of pulsars and magnetars.

      But the notion of sentient origin is always fascinating. I'm glad we observe this slice of time

      • Navigation Aids (Score:4, Interesting)

        by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @06:00PM (#57934034)

        I guess something like this could be used as a deep space GPS if you knew exactly where they originated from

      • The obvious reason would be that other than the repeating signal these are one time deals whereas pulsars and such are often repeating signals.

        These are entirely mysterious, we now know gamma ray bursts are created by stars collapsing into black holes but these bursts are not gamma waves and lie below visual light in the EM spectrum. Although the amount of energy involved is large it's believed it's not large enough to involve neutron stars/blackholes. This is what makes them so interesting, scientists don'

      • And who's to say the other ones don't repeat? Perhaps it only repeats every hundred years? Or million years? Or it's a continuous signal that is not always sent in our direction?

        If a signal was coming from an orbiting body with rotation, especially on a wobbly inclined axis, it may be a long time before it is broadcast directly at us again.

        It might be a very repetitive signal, even a constant signal, just not always pointing directly at us.

        Like a wobbly top with a single laser beam coming out of it, think

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        As much as the Space Guppies here on Earth want it to be aliens (preferably not the brain eating kind), the BBC interviewed a scientist involved and she said that, no, it probably wasn't aliens. The reason: They've detected so many (I think her figure was over 70) and they come from all over the sky that the idea aliens in different galaxies colluded to produce similar signals was too much to believe.

        Space is really, really big...so big you wouldn't believe it. The idea of aliens colluded over the time it t

      • The power and distance of the signal means it's certainly something astronomical like a neutron star or quasar etc. There would be far more efficient directed means of attempting communication (e.g. laser sending non-random repeating math contact style).

    • Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? (Score:5, Funny)

      by lgw ( 121541 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @05:36PM (#57933934) Journal

      I would like to know if this is a natural phenomenon or is it possible it is from sentient beings. There is no indication in the summary.

      First rule of astronomy: it's never aliens.*

      * Until it's aliens.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      I would like to know if this is a natural phenomenon or is it possible it is from sentient beings. There is no indication in the summary.

      Considering TFS says "the cause has remained a puzzle", astronomers would like to know the answer too.

    • Sentient beings would use reasonable amounts of power to communicate. Only natural forces can be expected to create such incredibly high-energy bursts.

      Among other considerations, a transmitter which could send such a powerful signal might necessarily vaporize the planet it's on in the process of releasing so much energy.

    • I would like to know if this is a natural phenomenon or is it possible it is from sentient beings. There is no indication in the summary.

      .

      If it was they were ringing 1.5billion years ago, they've probably hung up by now.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Rule #1: It's not aliens.

      But any aliens will be able to see what we see too.

      Who's to say that it's not an galactic standard that such easily-visible, obviously stand-out, and naturally-occurring phenomena aren't used as waypoints for navigation, and maybe even naturally become meeting points and the "service stations" of the galaxy? Not because someone is deliberately making them (they'd be patterned and obvious and everywhere and have more information inside their blinking than just a blinking light), bu

    • I would like to know if this is a natural phenomenon or is it possible it is from sentient beings.

      So would everyone else. :)

      There is no indication in the summary.

      Of course not. They don't know either.

      I let my brain relax and I see what the problem here is. I am unsure if I can speak of it coherently, but here is a shot at it:

      You are assuming these people know MUCH more than they actually know. The stuck an antenna out the window and they found some radio noise that seemed a bit more than just noise. They looked at the position of the antenna and the strength of the signal and have tried to guess where those signals were coming from. They di

  • Clearly... (Score:3)

    by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @04:58PM (#57933718)

    Clearly it's a big ass space battle!

    Fucking kick ass!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      I hear stories like this and think of the Drake equation. I wonder if things like this are an alien race discovering some hyper advanced technology, losing control of it, and having it destroy everything.

      • I hear stories like this and think of the Drake equation. I wonder if things like this are an alien race discovering some hyper advanced technology, losing control of it, and having it destroy everything.

        Cheap, easy, and fast matter to energy total conversion. Just pull this lever.

        Oops, that got a bit out of hand. The planet is now missing.

  • A giant scanning radar beam? (Score:3)

    by misnohmer ( 1636461 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @06:11PM (#57934080)

    A giant 10km in diameter radar antenna array. Earth sees a small burst of radio waves repeatedly every time the radar beam scans across in the direction or Earth (hence the short duration). The big question is who is operating such scanning radar arrays.

    • The amount of energy involved is the amount generated by our SUN over 80 years. It's a LOT of energy.

    • The big question is who is operating such scanning radar arrays.

      If I told you, I would have to kill you. Lucky for you, "who" is not an answer that is possible to convey to humans because humans have not evolved the "brain circuitry" necessary to comprehend. Can you talk to your dog about who owns the car that your dog is riding in? Of course not. Dog's don't speak a human language and they are incapable of understanding titles, banks loans, etc. Well, in the same vein, the best I can do for you is point over there ---->

      They are operating it.

      But once we go down the r

  • "Honey, did you remember to turn off the deep space burst transmitter," asked Gorn's wife.

    "Jeez, of course I did. Now stop nagging me and let me watch my damned Slaget match!"

  • 400 megahertz (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'd be interested to hear how they eliminated terrestrial sources as 400 megahertz is a very common radio freq used by professional and amateurs. The higher Gz ones seem more interesting to me.

  • No data download available on the website and yet the telescope is funded by the federal government two provincial governments.

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