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

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.

57 comments

  1. I listened to it. Was hoping it'd be... by nwaack · · Score: 1

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

    1. Re:I listened to it. Was hoping it'd be... by Hentai007 · · Score: 0

      I decoded it, it read

      "Be Sure To Drink Your Ovaltine."

    2. Re:I listened to it. Was hoping it'd be... by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Funny

      I decoded it, it read

      "Be Sure To Drink Your Ovaltine."

      Burma Shave

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    3. Re:I listened to it. Was hoping it'd be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those guys opening the microwave oven door instead of waiting for it to finish again.

    4. Re:I listened to it. Was hoping it'd be... by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      I decoded it, it read

      "Be Sure To Drink Your Ovaltine."

      Mine came out as

      Send nudes

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  2. Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by tsuliga · · Score: 2

    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.

    1. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's Hitler's Olympic broadcast

    2. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by mark-t · · Score: 1

      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.

    3. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      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....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    4. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by TFlan91 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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

    5. Re: Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is it about unidentified things that makes people jump to the conclusion they're evidence for space aliens?

    6. Re: Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because, Aliens...

    7. Re: Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1
    8. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If a signal were created by intention rather than merely emergent from the "natural" rules of physical reality you would need to consider several factors:

      1) The target audience. 2) The intended influence. 3) The desired outcome.

      For example if you were advertising tea for sale in China you likely wouldn't want to present a message in Punjabi to an American audience about the comparative traction in various tire treads.

      Likewise if the target audience were us humans here on earth with the intended influence being that we identify the source of the message, the content of the message would have been chosen to ensure as definitively as possible that the source was not "natural".

      In the film "Contact" a repeating series of pulses counting primes in incremental order is given as an example.

    9. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by lgw · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    10. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      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.

    11. Re: Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by javaman235 · · Score: 2

      If we are hearing it here from another galaxy and it is alien, it is a signal so ridiculously strong, I would be willing to consider that it is not a message at all, but rather an alien system of power distribution. Similar to what Tesla proposed for wireless energy, strong enough bursts could keep probes running long after nuclear reactors shut down, as will happen to Voyager in about 8 years.

      --
      -The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
    12. Re: Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Hognoxious · · Score: 0

      Ever been mistaken for a man, Vasquez?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    13. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    14. Re: Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hydrogen * Pi

    15. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      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't' have a good explanation for the cause within the standard model.

    16. Re: Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, have you?

    17. Re: Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unidtentified flying objects, I don't know why you would assume aliens. Unidentified space signals? Those really could be. We have plenty of evidence that the universe is teeming with life, so presumably there are signs out there somewhere- it is really anomalous that we haven't found any yet over that vastness of space and time.

    18. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I, for one, welcome our new intergalactic broadcasting overlords.

    19. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by EETech1 · · Score: 1

      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 about how long it could spin before the laser beam hit you directly in the eye.

    20. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder why the world's leading experts in the field never thought of that possibility. With it not being amazingly obvious at all.

    21. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      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.

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    22. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by ledow · · Score: 2

      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), but because they are nice natural milestones.

      But something blinking regularly across the entire galaxy is probably NOT a specific sign of intelligent life in any way, shape or form. Intelligent life doesn't advertise itself in such simple ways, the same way that we don't blast out Morse Code into the abyss for more than a fraction of a fraction of a tiny percent of a fraction of our existence, and certainly don't do it in all directions so powerfully.

      If we wanted to attract people, we wouldn't just put out a bright light on a regular pulse. We'd cram it full of things to entice intelligent life in - maybe with a pulse to gain your attention, and then inside that pulse, or nearby, or having the pulses in a pattern with each other, etc. etc.

      Same way that on Earth, a blinking light moving overhead isn't going to be an alien trying to attract attention or communicate. It's going to be an airplane, or a drone. If they wanted to attract our attention and had the power to make such things, they'd do it better.

    23. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by gtall · · Score: 1

      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 takes signals to traverse space is too much to ask. Of course the Space Guppies answer is "they might be using physics we don't understand yet." Uh, sure thing, get back to us when you have a theory.

      Someone cue Fox News, they go for this sort of stupid "It wuz the aliens wut dun it".

    24. Re: Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody knows the mechanism behind these repeating bursts. But they take a phenominal amount of energy. They arenâ(TM)t likely to be artificial.

    25. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by quanminoan · · Score: 1

      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).

    26. Re: Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about the " Wow " signal ? A brief history in time ? No one knows yet how space and time work . Theories !? It's us from the future trying to report back ? Only God knows

    27. Re:Is There Any Chance Of Sentient Beings? by strikethree · · Score: 1

      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 didn't "see" anything in particular in that direction that should be causing those "noises" but they still felt it was important to share that they did indeed hear noises. They shared all of the facts that they were aware of in the hopes that someone like you might have an idea to propose that they can further investigate.

      TL;DR, some people heard some noises. they pointed out the direction the noises came from. they have no other facts than noises and direction.

      Beyond the TL;DR, the repeating signal could be significant or it could just be another pulsar/neutron star type of thing that also repeats. If the noises had "complex" patterns and was repeating, that would indicate aliens. If the repetition and contents of the signal can be explained by known interactions, then it is not aliens. The situation we are in now is combination of both: We don't see anything "complex" about the signals but we can't explain them either.

      So yeah. That is where we, and now you, are at currently. :)

      HTH

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
  3. Clearly... by skam240 · · Score: 2

    Clearly it's a big ass space battle!

    Fucking kick ass!

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    I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
    1. Re:Clearly... by jwhyche · · Score: 2

      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 read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
    2. Re:Clearly... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or it's laser pulsars (if such a thing exists), red-sifted to radio frequencies. Who knew, distance recreated the dead radio stars! There should be a song about that.

    3. Re:Clearly... by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      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.

  4. Sorry Hank already solved the mystery. Spoiler... by wolfheart111 · · Score: 2
    --
    [($)]
  5. Navigation Aids by sycodon · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:Navigation Aids by stealth_finger · · Score: 3

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

      Like they did on the golden record? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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  6. A giant scanning radar beam? by misnohmer · · Score: 2

    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.

    1. Re: A giant scanning radar beam? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wouldn't the big question be why are they operating such radar arrays if they wont get answers back for billions of years?

      It doesn't seem likely.

    2. Re: A giant scanning radar beam? by Bobrick · · Score: 1

      The point of a radar is to find out what's out there, you don't build a big honking radar array if you already know what the radar will show you.

    3. Re:A giant scanning radar beam? by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

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

    4. Re: A giant scanning radar beam? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That assumes the hypothetical operators reckon time as we do. Just here on earth we have species whose lives are not more than a few hours, and we have species whose lives lives can last several centuries. We even have species of jellyfish wich are theoretically immortal.

      Who is to say wether [hypothetical alien species] are concerned about a X billion years?

    5. Re: A giant scanning radar beam? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do if you want to see if any of the objects move in unexpected ways.

    6. Re:A giant scanning radar beam? by strikethree · · Score: 1

      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 road of explaining sentience above your level, I have to kill you or else you will disturb the rest of humanity in such a way that mass mayhem will eventually be the result.

      Sorry bro. Until you start exhibiting signs of higher consciousness, we have to leave you in the dark in regards to what is really going on. It is for your own safety. Be happy with your radial tires, toaster, and tv set. :)

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    7. Re:A giant scanning radar beam? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That somebody must have dropped a piece of tacky jewelry on a chair, which then entirely accidentally got in contact with the capacitor. We should be sending our FTL flying saucer piloted with a team of brunette stewardesses, with ah so long legs, and having an investigative agent with a handbag holding a one-eyed snake of doom inside as a passenger, dressed in a spunky red dress. Before it's too late and we all have to wear raincoats, all the time.

  7. The truth is out there by elrous0 · · Score: 0

    "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!"

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re: The truth is out there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slaget is the space-shizz-nit

  8. 400 megahertz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    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.

    1. Re:400 megahertz by AndroSyn · · Score: 1

      There are several allocations for radio astronomy across different bands that correspond with spectral lines for various elements and chemicals.

      See the list of allocations here: http://www.naic.edu/~rfiuser/s...

    2. Re: 400 megahertz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The source sweeps through the beam of the antenna with a characteristic pattern. That proves it comes from the sky. They see it each time they scan the same place in the sky, eliminating satellites.

  9. ben by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cosmic gastrulation

  10. Is the data open source? by fygment · · Score: 1

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

    --
    "Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
    1. Re: Is the data open source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The scientists doing the research have exclusive use of the data for a period of time so they can publish. Most scientific instruments work this way.