The Allan Telescope Array (ATA) in California that hunts for aliens has detected dozens of odd energy bursts that are shooting across space.
Fast Radio Bursts Explained
These energy bursts are called fast radio bursts (FRBS), which are phenomena in the astronomical world that are marked by strong and brief radio waves from mysterious sources.
These FRBs have puzzled scientists since they were first found, or heard, in 2007 by radio telescopes.
The light flashes just blink for a millisecond. They come from outside of the Milky Way and have the capacity to produce energy equivalent to what the Sun can produce in a whole year.
FRBs are thought to be from intense objects like neutron stars that have strong magnetic fields, which are also known as magnetars. They are also believed to be from cataclysmic happenings, such as neutron star collapses or stellar collisions.
What makes FRBs even more complicated is that some of them repeatedly flash at the same sky spot more than once. However, most of them end up bursting at a single time and then vanishing altogether.
Detecting Fast Radio Bursts
The 35 FRB signals were detected by the SETI Institute, which noticed an observable drop in the bursts' center frequency that had a sound like a slide-whistle. The energy bursts were seen blinking in a pattern that was never observed in the past.
The team behind the detection made use of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) of the SETI to examine the recurring FRB, named FRB 20220912A. They spent more than 541 hours, or almost 23 days, observing the FRB.
The team was able to observe that its radiation bursts cover a vast frequency range in the region of radio waves in the electromagnetic spectrum. Eventually, this turned into a unique pattern that was never seen by astronomers in the past.
Dr. Sofiab Sheikh, who serves as the study's lead author, explains how the work is exciting as it confirms the known properties of FRBs and enables some new properties of the phenomena to be discovered. Dr. Sheikh adds that they are narrowing down FRB sources to certain extreme objects. However, no current model can fully explain the properties that have been observed.
The novel data can aid with unraveling the mysteries of FRB sources in deep-space and why some of these FRBs have intense and rapid radiation repeat blasts.
RELATED ARTICLE: 25 Fast Radio Bursts Discovered To Be Recurring; What Are FRBs and How Important Are They in Radio Astronomy?
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