The truth is out there.
Thousands of radio signals from deep space have made their way to Earth — 50 of them from repetitive sources, according to Canadian astronomers monitoring what could be possible contact from another world.
Recently, 25 new repetitive sources, technically known as fast radio bursts (FRBs) were discovered from the depths of the universe, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) reported.
The project uses a powerful radio telescope in British Columbia to receive the signals.
These FRBs are, according to the CHIME/FRB scientific collaboration, “considered one of the greatest mysteries in astronomy,” but it has been confirmed that they came from outside the Milky Way galaxy.
“Most of the thousands of FRBs astronomers have discovered to date have only been seen once, but there is a small subset that has been seen multiple times,” the collaboration said.
“One of the big questions is whether the repeating FRBs and the ones that don’t repeat have the same origin. “
Their newly published study found that some of the mysterious FRBs were not random signal emissions, said study co-author Dr. Ziggy Pleunis.
“We can now accurately calculate the probability that two or more eruptions originating from similar locations are not a coincidence,” added Dr. Pleasure to it.
Advances in this technology have also made Earth’s top minds more familiar with what’s coming our way.
The development of the CHIME telescope — which can scan the northern sky every day — has also led to increased interception rates “from a few dozen to thousands in recent years,” researchers say. Dr. Pleunis said it “has an edge over other telescopes when it comes to discovering FRBs.”
The repetitive sources of FRBs provide criteria that are “uniquely valuable to astronomers” in that the source can be observed in greater detail.
Repeating sources of FRBs are uniquely valuable to astronomers.
First, knowing that a source is a repeater provides an opportunity to observe it in more detail with other telescopes. And second, more bursts give us more information about the diversity of emissions a source can produce.
“FRBs are likely produced by the remnants of explosive stellar deaths.” Pleunis said. “By studying repeating FRB sources in detail, we can study the environments in which these explosions occur and better understand the terminal stages of a star’s life.”
The super-powered telescope and the brain behind it have already led to a major breakthrough.
“It is exciting that CHIME/FRB saw multiple flashes from the same locations, as this allows for a detailed investigation of their nature,” said researcher Adaeze Ibik.
“We were able to narrow down some of these repetitive sources and have already identified likely associated galaxies for two of them.”
