Mysterious radio signal from space with 'heartbeat' pattern detected
A mysterious radio explosion with a pattern similar to a heartbeat has been detected in space.
Astronomers estimate that the signal came from a galaxy about a billion light years away, but the exact location and cause of the explosion is unknown. A study detailing the findings published Wednesday in the journal Natural.
Rapid radio bursts, or FRBs, are intense, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves of unknown origin. The first FRBs were discovered in 2007, and since then, hundreds of these rapid cosmic flashes have been detected coming from various distant points throughout the universe.
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Many FRBs release super-bright radio waves that last only a few milliseconds before disappearing completely, and about 10 percent of them are known to repeat and have patterns.
Fast radio bursts are so fast and unpredictable that they are difficult to observe.
One of the sources used to find them is a radio telescope called the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, or CHIME, at the Dominion Radio Astrophysics Observatory in British Columbia, Canada.
The telescope, which has been in operation since 2018, is constantly observing the sky and, in addition to its fast radio bursts, is sensitive to radio waves emitted by hydrogen deep in the universe.
Astronomers using CHIME saw something on December 21, 2019, that immediately caught their attention: a fast radio burst that was “weird in many ways,” according to Daniele Michilli, a postdoctoral researcher at the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research.
The signal, named FRB 20191221A, lasted up to three seconds – which is about 1000 times longer than a typical fast radio burst.
Michilli was monitoring incoming data from CHIME, when the explosion occurred. The signal is the most durable fast radio burst to date.
“That’s unusual,” Michilli said. “Not only was it incredibly long, lasting about three seconds, but there was a very precise periodic peak, emitting every split second — boom, boom, boom — like a heartbeat. This is the first time the signal itself is periodic.”
While FRB 20191221A has not repeated, “the signal is formed by the series of sequential peaks we found separated by ~0.2 seconds,” he said in an email.
Unknown source
The research team doesn’t know exactly which galaxy the explosion came from and even the estimated distance of one billion light years is “highly uncertain,” Michilli said. While CHIME is ready to search for bursts of radio waves, CHIME is not as good at finding their point of origin.
However, CHIME is being scaled up through a project in which additional telescopes, currently under construction, will observe together and be able to triangulate radio bursts to specific galaxies, he said.
But the signal does contain clues as to where it’s coming from and what might be causing it.
“CHIME has now detected many FRBs with different properties,” Michilli said. “We’ve seen some living in very turbulent clouds, while others look like they’re in a clean environment. From the nature of this new signal, we can tell that in the vicinity of this source, there is a plasma cloud that must be very turbulent.”
When the researchers analyzed FRB 20191221A, the signal was similar to the emissions emitted by two different types of neutron stars, or the dense remains after giant stars die, called radio pulsars and magnetars.
Magnetars are neutron stars with very strong magnetic fields, while radio pulsars release radio waves that appear to pulse when the neutron star rotates. The two stellar objects make a signal similar to the flashing rays of a lighthouse.
The fast radio bursts appear to be more than a million times brighter than this emission. “We think this new signal could be a magnetar or pulsar on steroids,” Michilli said.
The research team will continue to use CHIME to monitor the sky for more signals from this radio burst, as well as others with similar periodic signals. The frequency of radio waves and how they change can be used to help astronomers learn more about the rate at which the universe is expanding.
“This detection raises questions about what could be causing these extreme signals we’ve never seen before, and how we can use these signals to study the universe,” Michilli said. “Future telescopes promise to find thousands of FRBs a month, and by then we may find many more of these periodic signals.”
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