Science
Related: About this forumMysterious 'fast radio burst' detected closer to Earth than ever before
By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer 6 days ago
Most FRBs originate hundreds of millions of light-years away. This one came from inside the Milky Way.
Artist's impression of a magnetar launching a burst of X-ray and radio waves across the galaxy
(Image: © ESA)
Thirty thousand years ago, a dead star on the other side of the Milky Way belched out a powerful mixture of radio and X-ray energy. On April 28, 2020, that belch swept over Earth, triggering alarms at observatories around the world.
The signal was there and gone in half a second, but that's all scientists needed to confirm they had detected something remarkable: the first ever "fast radio burst" (FRB) to emanate from a known star within the Milky Way, according to a study published July 27 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Since their discovery in 2007, FRBs have puzzled scientists. The bursts of powerful radio waves last only a few milliseconds at most, but generate more energy in that time than Earth's sun does in a century. Scientists have yet to pin down what causes these blasts, but they've proposed everything from colliding black holes to the pulse of alien starships as possible explanations. So far, every known FRB has originated from another galaxy, hundreds of millions of light-years away.
This FRB is different. Telescope observations suggest that the burst came from a known neutron star the fast-spinning, compact core of a dead star, which packs a sun's-worth of mass into a city-sized ball about 30,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Vulpecula. The stellar remnant fits into an even stranger class of star called a magnetar, named for its incredibly powerful magnetic field, which is capable of spitting out intense amounts of energy long after the star itself has died. It now seems that magnetars are almost certainly the source of at least some of the universe's many mysterious FRBs, the study authors wrote.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/fast-radio-burst-magnetar-milky-way.html
FoxNewsSucks
(10,434 posts)It is 2020, after all. People need to stop asking "jeez, what ELSE could happen"
tanyev
(42,559 posts)PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,861 posts)I am going to see if My Son The Astronomer knows anything about this.
I will add that My Son The Astronomer is doing exo-planet research, and while he knows vastly more than I do about things like this, he is good at admitting what he doesn't know.
Nonetheless, I truly love all of your posts.
Delmette2.0
(4,165 posts)Are the radio bursts actually a natural occurring event from a sun. Or is it from a planet so close to the sun the mere humans on this planet can't tell the difference,
Seroiusly, how can a sun send intelligent radio signals?
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,861 posts)Last edited Fri Aug 14, 2020, 11:48 AM - Edit history (1)
The neutron star in question has the properties needed for this thing.
And it is NOT an intelligent radio signal. People who say that are indulging in wishful thinking. Or, as My Son The Astronomer pointed out, if they really were trying to do that with these bursts, it's really poor bandwidth and they wouldn't be able to include much information. And if there are planets around neutron stars, the conditions on them would hardly be favorable to life.
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,855 posts)... who speculated the signals came from magnetars.
I majored in math and physics, but their logic used in piecing together these puzzles truly amazes me sometimes!
Delmette2.0
(4,165 posts)Obviously I know very little about this but I am fascinated by it all.
nmgaucho
(527 posts)They are going to arrive and state: " Enough is enough, you ignorant humans are effing up this beautiful planet so in order to save it, we are taking over now "