There’s strange pulses of energy coming from deep space and astronomers are trying
to understand what they mean...
Could it be aliens or maybe just your microwave oven?
Hello!
I’m Ian O’Neill, space producer at Discovery News, and I’m really excited to be shooting
here at the YouTube Space in in my hometown of LA!
Now, if you’re a regular reader of my articles, you’ll know that I LOVE a good space mystery.
Not only does the word “mystery” get me excited, it also makes web traffic soar like
hitting the jackpot on a Vegas slot machine, so before pulling the “alien card” I like
to examine every possibility before jumping to THAT conclusion.
And fortunately, astronomers are of the same mindset -- detecting a mysterious signal from
the depths of space isn’t necessarily a strange thing; it’s just that with all the
awesome possibilities the universe contains, a mysterious signal just means we’ve found
something new and exotic.
So, that brings me to fast radio bursts, or FRBs.
FRBs are very rapid radio pulses that have been detected at random locations in the cosmos
at random times.
They are transient flashes lasting microseconds that appear to originate beyond our galaxy.
By pure luck, should a radio telescope be pointing directly at one, we can measure its
properties.
Since 2001 only a dozen of these FRBs have been detected, mainly by the Parkes Observatory
in Australia, but astronomers reckon that, if we could observe the entire radio sky at
the same time, we could detect thousands of these flashes every day.
Astronomers have to be careful of interpreting the source of FRBs as there are many terrestrial
sources of interference that can mess with your data.
FRBs that originate from human activity or weather events are known as PERYTONS, and
in an effort to understand the origin of perytons, the scientists at Parkes decided to set up
a real-time radio interference detector at the observatory.
During an observation run in January, the telescope detected three peryton events and
these events matched detections by the real-time interference detector.
This was a sure sign that the radio pulses were not extraterrestrial in nature.
And the mystery soon evaporated when they realized that these perytons were actually
being generated by a microwave door being opened prematurely in the kitchen at the observatory.
This may sound like a silly investigation, but it is quite the opposite -- by tracking
down sources of interference, astronomers can better shield their sensitive radio antennae
against them and remove their signatures from deep space observing campaigns.
But also, it proves that the FRBs of extragalactic origin are real signals from millions of light-years
away and yet we STILL HAVE NO CLUE what they are!
Of course the tabloid press still thinks the signals are caused by aliens, but that’s
hardly surprising.
When mysterious regular radio pulses were detected in 1967, astronomers named the flashing
object “LGM-1” -- where LGM stands for “Little Green Men” after the idea that
the pulses may be created by an alien civilization.
The signal was actually being caused by a rapidly spinning neutron star and became the
first ever detection of a pulsar.
We have now detected thousands.
FRBs are just as mysterious as those Little Green Men were in 1967, but there are some
exciting ideas as what they could be.
Generated over a region hundreds of miles wide in extra-galactic locations, FRBs must
be extremely energetic.
That MIGHT suggest they are being triggered by black hole collisions.
Or they MIGHT be generated by evaporating black holes, hinting at a quantum origin of
gravity.
Or they MIGHT be created by ... something entirely different.
So the next time you hear about mysterious signals from outer space, it doesn’t necessarily
mean aliens are behind it.
Unless, of course, those aliens are using microwave ovens to heat up last night’s
take-out.
Sorry to burst your bubble - are you disappointed in this finding or does it fascinate you?
Let us know in the comments below and subscribe to DNews for more science every day of the
week.