Radio blasts with 'regular rhythms' and unknown origin
coming from space, scientists say
Researchers have picked up strange, repeating rhythms in
blasts of energy coming from an unknown source in space.
The blasts are known as fast radio bursts, or FRBs, and are
coming to Earth in a stable, repeating pattern, according to a new paper
detailing the discovery.
Researchers still do not know the source of those bursts.
Though they must come from some very extreme, intense part of the universe,
there is no way of knowing what process gives rise to them.
The first FRB was picked up in 2007 and scientists have gone
on to find more than 100 since. Initially, they were detected only as
individual blasts, but in recent times researchers have found repeating
sources.
Now astronomers have started to find bursts repeating in a
pattern, where they seem to switch off and on in a predictable pattern.
The latest discovery sends out random bursts of radio waves
over a four-day window, and then goes quiet for 12 days, before beginning
again.
Researchers watched the bursts for more than 500 days,
noting that the 16-day pattern occurred consistently over that time, making it
the most definitive pattern yet seen.
“This FRB we’re reporting now is like clockwork,” says
Kiyoshi Masui, assistant professor of physics in MIT’s Kavli Institute for
Astrophysics and Space Research.
“It’s the most definitive pattern we’ve seen from one of
these sources. And it’s a big clue that we can use to start hunting down the
physics of what’s causing these bright flashes, which nobody really
understands.”
The discovery is reported in a new article, titled 'Periodic
activity from a fast radio burst source', published in Nature today.
The latest FRBs were picked up by CHIME, a radio telescope
in British Columbia
that began its work in 2017. Since then, it quickly started picking up FRBs,
using a technique that allows it to stare at the entire sky rather than moving
around if and when any burst is detected.
The repeating nature of the burst could give new insight
into where they are coming from.
Possibilities include one single object such as a neutron
star that is spinning and wobbling in space. That could explain the pattern to
the blasts, since the 16-day period may be the time it takes for the object to
spin around, with the four days of activity the ones in which it is pointing
towards us.
The blasts could also be the result of a binary system such
as a neutron star orbiting around another neutron star or black hole. The
pattern could be the result of the orbit between, and the interaction between
the two objects, which would explain their regular pattern, scientists say.
Another involves a static radio source that is going around
a central star – that star could be letting out a cloud of gas that magnify the
radio emissions and send them powerfully towards Earth. The repeating pattern
could therefore be an indication of when that source travels through its
clouds.
The CHIME telescope works to keep exploring FRB, measuring
one roughly each day. It will also keep watching the newly discovered burst,
and any changes in its properties could offer an important hint about where it
is coming from.
end
SCIENTISTS FIND EXACT LOCATION OF INTENSE RADIO BLASTS
COMING FROM SPACE
Scientists have tracked down the location of intense radio
signals that have been coming from space.
Researchers found that the blasts appear to be coming from
galaxies that look remarkably similar to our own Milky Way.
The discovery rules out some of the most extreme
explanations for where the blasts are coming from, such as supermassive black
holes. But the source of the bursts – which are so unusual they have been
explained by everything from stars slamming together to alien technology –
still remains mysterious.
Fast radio bursts are very short, very intense blasts of
energy that come to us from deep in space. They last just a milisecond but
release more energy than our Sun emits in 80 years.
They were first discovered in 2007, and scientists have
spent the years since attempting to understand how something can give such
bright but brief signals. But spotting them is difficult, since there is no way
to predict where one may come from, and understanding their origin is even
harder.
Now researchers have made a new breakthrough by looking at
the precise location of four previously discovered fast radio bursts. Using the
ASKAP radio telescope located in the Western Australian outback, astronomers
were able to "zoom in" onto the host galaxies of the burst, in an
attempt to understand whether their neighbourhoods could give any clue about
where they are coming from.
They found that all four of the bursts they studied appeared
to come from massive galaxies that are forming new stars at a modest rate, like
the Milky Way.
While the process creating them still remains clear, the
fact they are being ejected from the edges of their home galaxies does rule out
some explanations of where they could be coming from.
“These precisely localised fast radio bursts came from the
outskirts of their home galaxies, removing the possibility that they have
anything to do with supermassive black holes,” said Shivani Bhandari, a
researcher at CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, who led the research
which is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
end
We see the headline in one piece that the origin of FRBs
is...Unknown. In the original article
from the Independent, however, we read that the source of the FRBs has led
scientists to their exact location
source.
Neither is really true since "scientists" have
only managed to find the area in space where the FRBs originate.
It has to be remembered that space itself is not
'noiseless'. In fact, it is quite noisy if you listen in. We also, despite the
outrageous claims of a large number of astronomers, do not know everything
about the universe and have all the answers -we have not even explored the
planets or moons in our own system yet and they are throwing up a large number
of mysteries.
Astronomers Detect Glowing Green Oxygen Aura in Mars’
Atmosphere
It has long been believed that our world is the only planet
in the Solar System with an oxygen-based atmosphere, as there is a glowing
green aura around the Earth formed by the combination of sunlight with oxygen
atoms and atmospheric molecules. Similar emissions have now for the first time
been spotted surrounding the Red Planet.
The European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO),
circling the planet since 2016, has detected a glowing green oxygen aura in the
Martian atmosphere for the first time, the agency said in a Monday statement.
The emission ring, seen previously only around the Earth by
astronauts aboard the International Space Station, occurs when sunlight
combines with oxygen atoms and air molecules in the planet’s atmosphere.
Astronomers have for decades posited that a similar emission
signature takes place in Mars’ atmosphere, but only now have they proved its
presence.
“One of the brightest emissions seen on Earth stems from
night glow. More specifically, from oxygen atoms emitting a particular
wavelength of light that has never been seen around another planet,” said
Jean-Claude Gerard of the Belgian University of Liege, and lead author of the
new study published in Nature Astronomy. “However, this emission has been
predicted to exist at Mars for around 40 years – and, thanks to TGO, we’ve
found it”.
The glowing green oxygen aura was spotted by a special TGO
tool known as NOMAD (Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery), as the orbiter
circled the Red Planet in the period between April and December of 2019,
according to the research team.
“Previous observations hadn’t captured any kind of green
glow at Mars, so we decided to reorient the UVIS nadir channel to point at the
‘edge’ of Mars, similar to the perspective you see in images of Earth taken
from the ISS,” said Ann Carine Vandaele of the Royal Belgian Institute for
Space Aeronomy, co-author of the study and principal investigator for NOMAD.
The team asserts that further study is needed to uncover
additional secrets of the Martian atmosphere, and necessarily suggest sending
more satellites to Mars to expand our knowledge of our nearest planetary
neighbor.
End
Now, rather like the fampous image of Oumuamua the image of the "Green Mars halo" is being taken as an actual photograph...if the probe is in the photo who took the photo? Clearly no one read "pic: artist impression"!
Back in the days of the old AOP Bureau Franklyn A
Davin-Wilson gathered much data on not just Unidentified Orbital Objects but
also Signals from Space. Many anomalies were found to have come from
interstellar objects –quasars, neutron stars and so forth –but unknown when the
data first appeared. After Franklyn’s untimely death I took over the work but
nothing ever stood up to scrutiny All except one that even had famous British
astronomer Patrick Moore stumped.
Science is somewhat like medicine: you take each facet of a
problem and build up an accurate picture after excluding one possibility after
another. There is the danger of missing things by constantly declaring “It is never aliens” and if you have a list of possibilities then, yes, you have to put
“Aliens” at the bottom of the list because
you have to check every other possibility first. This is where 99% of
Ufologists fail from the outset.
Above: Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015
“The light was moving around as though intelligently
controlled” says a witness. “Alien probe –they are well known amongst
researchers” says the Ufologist. No. Those
people are NOT “researchers”. “It was not ball lightning because there was no
storm at the time” is a nonsense since, in 1980, the AOP Bureau UFO
Report highlighted and identified natural phenomena and how they should
be excluded from the whole UFO subject since they are more a problem for
physicists. The whole “moved intelligently” is a fallacy down to untrained
observers, some of whom were rather panicky.
At the moment there seems to be a great deal of ufological
chat about astronomers “covering up the alien perspective” of the FRBs. I note
that a number of ‘celebrity ufologists’ and MUFON (of course) ‘experts’ are
involved in this. I suppose it gives
them something else to talk about other than Mantell, Roswell etc..
The FRB story is appearing every few weeks in the news
because writers can suggest a sensationalist aspect to the story. I think the
latest “They are from an Unknown source” and “Clearly identified source” –from the
same news item- displays how silly this can all get.
Perhaps Elon Musk ought to deploy a large number of tiny
probes into various parts of the solar system looking for actual signals?
Just saying.
