This is Damned Peculiar

Tuckerfan · Feb 8, 2020

It ain't aliens, but nobody knows what it might be.

Something in Deep Space Is Sending Signals to Earth in Steady 16-Day Cycles

A mysterious radio source located in a galaxy 500 million light years from Earth is pulsing on a 16-day cycle, like clockwork, according to a new study. This marks the first time that scientists have ever detected periodicity in these signals, which are known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), and is a major step toward unmasking their sources.

FRBs are one of the most tantalizing puzzles that the universe has thrown at scientists in recent years. First spotted in 2007, these powerful radio bursts are produced by energetic sources, though nobody is sure what those might be. FRBs are also mystifying because they can be either one-offs or “repeaters,” meaning some bursts appear only once in a certain part of the sky, while others emit multiple flashes to Earth.

Pulses from these repeat bursts have, so far, seemed somewhat random and discordant in their timing. But that changed last year, when the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst Project (CHIME/FRB), a group dedicated to observing and studying FRBs, discovered that a repeater called FRB 180916.J0158+65 had a regular cadence.

The CHIME/FRB team kept tabs on the repeating burst between September 2018 and October 2019 using the CHIME radio telescope in British Columbia. During that period, the bursts were clustered into a period of four days, and then seemed to switch off for the next 12 days, for a total cycle of about 16 days. Some cycles did not produce any visible bursts, but those that did were all synced up to the same 16-day intervals.

“We conclude that this is the first detected periodicity of any kind in an FRB source,” the team said in a paper published on the preprint server arXiv in late January. “The discovery of a 16.35-day periodicity in a repeating FRB source is an important clue to the nature of this object.”

Scientists recently tracked down this particular FRB to a galaxy called SDSS J015800.28+654253.0, which is a half a billion light years from Earth. That may seem like a huge distance, but FRB 180916.J0158+65 is actually the closest FRB ever detected.

But while we know where it is, we still don’t know what it is. To that point, the beat of the FRB suggests that it might be modulated by its surroundings. If the source of the FRB is orbiting a compact object, such as a black hole, then it might only flash its signals toward Earth at a certain point in its orbital period. That scenario could potentially match this recognizable 16-day cycle.

It’s also possible that we are witnessing a binary system containing a massive star and a super-dense stellar core known as a neutron star, according to a study published on arXiv on Wednesday by a separate team that looked at the same data. In that model, the neutron star would emit radio bursts, but those signals would be periodically eclipsed by opaque outflowing winds from its giant companion.

Another scenario is that the FRB rhythm isn’t tempered by another object, and is sending out the pulses directly from the source. Scientists have previously suggested that flares from highly magnetized neutron stars, called magnetars, might be the source of some FRBs. But since magnetars tend to rotate every few seconds, a 16-day cycle does not match the expected profile of a magnetar-based FRB.

Ultimately, the CHIME/FRB team hopes to find similar patterns in the handful of known repeating bursts to see if these cycles are common. The researchers also plan to keep a careful eye on FRB 180916.J0158+6 while it is active in order to spot any other details that might point to its identity.

FRBs have baffled scientists for more than a decade, but new facilities such as CHIME are revealing new details about these weird events every year. While we still don’t know what is blasting out these bizarre signals, the discovery of a clear tempo from one of these sources provides a significant lead for scientists to follow.
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Whatever they are, something very powerful is emitting them. Radiation follows the inverse square law and these bursts have the same level of energy as a cellphone signal on the Moon traveling towards the Earth when they get here. Which means they must have been emitted with a whopping amount of energy by their source.

oldfella1962 · Feb 8, 2020

or so the Germans would have us believe!

Lanzman · Feb 8, 2020

Pulsar wobbling as it rotates, most likely.

Zombie · Feb 8, 2020

"This is Damned Peculiar"

Yellow Alert!

oldfella1962 · Feb 8, 2020

okay I just HAD TO DO THIS! When will I ever get another chance to put a Marvin Gaye song in a techforge thread? Science brought this on itself you know!

matthunter · Feb 27, 2020

The Night Funky said: ↑

Radiation follows the inverse square law and these bursts have the same level of energy as a cellphone signal on the Moon traveling towards the Earth when they get here. Which means they must have been emitted with a whopping amount of energy by their source.
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Having just learnt the inverse square and other inverse power laws as part of my OU compsci course, I'm half tempted to find out what the received signal power was and work it back...

Paladin · Feb 27, 2020

I've seen articles that often speculate on an artificial origin of signals received from space. Without fail they're devoid of logic.

No, aliens aren't sending us a signal from 50 million light years away. Humanity, let alone technological civilization, wouldn't have existed on Earth when the message was sent, so the aliens would've really been rolling the dice to send a message this way.

No, we're not going to intercept alien radio signals. One, intelligent aliens--like intelligent humans--would transmit signals in a highly directional fashion, so no off that axis would receive much/any signal. Two, there's no point sending radio energy in all directions when you only need it to go in one, especially given how much power it takes to transmit a radio signal across interstellar space. Three, they--like us--wouldn't use more transmission power than they need; there's no point wasting energy to transmit a signal a million light years when it only has to go a dozen.

That this new signal repeats so steadily is indicative of some regularly occurring phenomenon. Some energetic system is rotating on a 16 day period and once in each cycle, it's oriented in a way that transmits more power toward us.

Tuckerfan · Nov 12, 2020

We found one!

Mysterious 'fast radio burst' traced to a known object in the Milky Way for the first time ever

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are some of the most energetic — and most brief — blasts of light in the universe.

These mysterious radio wave pulses flash through space a thousand times a day, occasionally brushing past Earth and its vigilant telescopes. FRBs appear and disappear in milliseconds, yet pack more energy than the sun unleashes in three days. Some FRBs repeat over days or months. Most travel hundreds of millions of light-years to reach Earth. And none have ever led back to a definitive source in the cosmos — until now.

In a series of three papers published today (Nov. 4) in the journal Nature, researchers from the United States and Canada report the detection of an FRB that originates not in some far-flung galaxy, but 30,000 light-years away in the northern sky of the Milky Way. Not only is this the first FRB ever detected within our own galaxy, but also the first to originate from a known object in the universe — in this case, a highly-magnetized stellar corpse known as a magnetar.

This burnt-out star — named SGR 1935+2154 — provides the first concrete evidence of the origins of FRBs after more than a decade of mystery, Daniele Michilli, a co-author of one of the new studies, told Live Science.

"This is the most powerful radio burst ever detected in our galaxy, which is exciting on its own," Michilli, an astrophysicist with the FRB-hunting Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), said in an email. "But now we finally have evidence of at least one object that can produce FRBs. Magnetars were already one of the main candidates, so it is a nice confirmation of our theories."

When dead stars belch
Nestled in the bosom of a supernova remnant (the gassy graveyard left behind by a blown-apart star) in the constellation Vulpecula, SGR 1935+2154 first caught scientists' attention in 2014 when it began flinging powerful X-ray and gamma-ray pulses in Earth's direction. As the outbursts continued, astronomers identified the object as a magnetar.

Magnetars are a type of neutron star — the collapsed core of a once-mighty star that packs about twice the mass of Earth's sun into a ball no wider than a city. When those balls are surrounded by a particularly strong magnetic field — trillions of times stronger than Earth's — scientists call them magnetars.

For thousands of years after their formation, these temperamental objects cycle through periods of violent activity, beaming powerful pulses of X-ray and gamma-ray radiation into the universe around them at seemingly random intervals. The Milky Way hosts about 30 known magnetars, but none have ever spit out anything resembling an FRB in their high-energy tantrums.

None, except SGR 1935+2154. On April 28, 2020, the magnetar burst into a new period of activity; among the radiation it shot out was an FRB — two blips of bright radio energy, one lasting 0.58 milliseconds and the other 0.33, with about 30 milliseconds between them. The brief burst was 4,000 times brighter than any other radio pulse ever recorded in the Milky Way, the researchers wrote.

Two separate radio telescopes confirmed the FRB: CHIME, based in the hills of British Columbia, and the Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2 (STARE2), a suite of three telescopes based in the southwestern United States. Both institutions traced the FRB to the same region of the sky, pinpointing the newly reactivated magnetar.

According to the researchers this is proof, at last, that active magnetars are capable of generating FRBs during their high-energy tantrums. Considering that as many as 50% of all stars that die in a core-collapse could become magnetars, there are more than enough magnetars in the universe to account for every observed FRB, the researchers said.

However, both teams acknowledged that there may well be other objects in the universe also fueling FRBs.

One troublesome point about the Milky Way magnetar FRB: Its estimated energy output was significantly lower than almost any other FRB detected outside our galaxy. It's also "puzzling," the researchers wrote, that none of the other 30 known magnetars in the Milky Way have ever released FRB-like energies before.

It's impossible to rule out other cosmic events as possible FRB engines, the researchers concluded, such as two neutron stars colliding together, or certain black hole outbursts. But for now, at least, it's safe to say that some of the universe's strangest stars are responsible for some of its strangest light shows.
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Lanzman · Nov 13, 2020

Told ya. Wobbly pulsar, pretty much.

oldfella1962 · Nov 14, 2020

Lanzman said: ↑

Told ya. Wobbly pulsar, pretty much.
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I knew it! The oldest trick in the book and we fell for it again! That said: "I got yer wobbly pulsar hangin' buddy!"

Tuckerfan · May 16, 2023

Groundbreaking study reveals strong and changeable magnetic field surrounding repeating fast radio burst

I have a feeling that things are about to get real interesting. There's only two things that can be: A type of physical phenomena we've never seen before, so we're going to have to rethink a lotta things. Or fucking aliens.

Diacanu · May 16, 2023

So, are we going to have to spend a trillion dollars to make a gamma ray blaster to talk back to them?

Paladin · May 19, 2023

Diacanu said: ↑

So, are we going to have to spend a trillion dollars to make a gamma ray blaster to talk back to them?
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Yes, the trillion dollar gamma ray blaster is for...talking to aliens. Yeaaaah, that's the ticket.

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