![]() “We’ve looked at every other wavelength we can, all the way from the infrared to optical to X-rays, and we see nothing, so it doesn’t seem to be consistent with any kind of star that we understand,” says David Kaplan at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who was part of the research team. When it finally lit up again in February this year, several months after the initial detection, they pointed some of the most powerful non-radio telescopes we have at it and saw nothing. The researchers found that the object occasionally flared for up to a few weeks, but was dark most of the time. When fast radio bursts or FRBs, as they are called, reach Earths telescopes they shine brightly for a few milliseconds, then. ![]() They made further observations with the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa. Mysterious signals have been picked up from distant galaxies. He and his colleagues spotted the emissions six times in 2020 using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder radio telescope. The source of this radiation has been nicknamed “Andy’s object” after Ziteng Wang at the University of Sydney in Australia, who goes by the name Andy and first discovered the radio waves. They turn on and off seemingly at random, and their source must be unlike anything else we have seen before. Strange radio signals are coming from the direction of the centre of the galaxy and we aren’t sure what is emitting them. Most of the brief, occasionally repeating bursts have come from. Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are brief, powerful pulses of radio waves. Repeating fast radio bursts remain a mystery for astronomers, but these new discoveries could lead to key answers about them, and provide insights about other mysteries of the cosmos as well. Now we know more about what we should be looking for," Malesani said.Illustration of radio waves coming from the galactic centre The millisecond-long signal, known as a fast radio burst (FRB), is one of hundreds detected from space over the last 13 years. Astronomers just found 25 more mysterious repeating radio signals from space. The researchers found them by performing the very first delve through all of the data gathered between September 2019 and May 2021 by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment. "The theories are now that the radio wave burst might be linked to a very compact type of object - such as neutron stars or black holes and the bursts could be connected to collisions or 'star quakes'. In new research, a Canadian-led team of astronomers turned up another 25 repeating FRBs, doubling the number already discovered. However, the source of the radio bursts remain a mystery, the authors said. This object was appearing and disappearing over a few hours. Findings showed the source of the burst was located up to 5.5 billion light years from Earth. "But the fact that we did not see light in other wavelengths eliminates a number of astronomical phenomena that are associated with violent events such as gamma-ray bursts from exploding stars and supernovae, which were otherwise candidates for the burst."įindings also suggest that the burst came from an area where there is a magnetic field because of the polarisation of light observed. Whatever it was, the object gave off bursts every 18.18 minutes like clockwork, with each pulse lasting between 30 and 60 seconds. The burst could have hurled out as much energy in a few milliseconds as the Sun does in an entire day," Malesani explained. ![]() Repeating fast radio bursts are rare, but FRB 20190520B is the rarest of all: it is the only one that never rests, producing radio bursts a. The repeating burst known as FRB 20190520B was discovered in 2022 by astronomers at the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in China. ![]() However, the source of the radio bursts remain a mystery, the authors said. A fast radio burst that never stops repeating. Then the two X-ray sources were observed using the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma."įindings showed the source of the burst was located up to 5.5 billion light years from Earth. After working out the burst location with the Parkes telescope, the others were used to make follow up observations on different wavelengths.ĭaniele Malesani, astrophysicist at the University of Copenhagen, said: "Using the Swift space telescope we can observe light in the X-ray region and we saw two X-ray sources at that position. Published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the scientists mobilised 12 telescopes around the world and in space to capture the burst. Before and after the burst, only noise from the sky was detected. The intensity profile of the fast radio burst, showing how quickly it evolved in time, last only a few milliseconds.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |