Astronomers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other organizations have detected a strange radio signal from a distant galaxy, much like a heartbeat, that flashed with surprising regularity. The corresponding work appeared in the scientific journal Natute, according to EurekAlert.
The signal was classified as a fast radio burst (Fast Radio Bursts, FRB) – an intense burst of radio waves. Normally, this kind of signal lasts no more than a few milliseconds, but this one lasted up to three seconds (that is, about 1,000 times longer than the average FRB). During this period, scientists recorded bursts of radio waves that repeated every 0.2 seconds in a clear periodic sequence, similar to a heartbeat.
The researchers named the detected signal as FRB 20191221A, and it was the longest-lasting fast radio burst with the clearest periodic structure detected to date.
The source of the signal is in a distant galaxy, several billion light-years from Earth. Scientists don’t know for sure what the source might be, but they have a strong guess: either a radio pulsar or a magnetar (a type of neutron star, the extremely dense and rapidly rotating collapsed cores of giant stars).
“There aren’t many things in the universe that emit strictly periodic signals,” said Daniele Michilli, a postdoc at MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Studies. “Examples we know in our own galaxy are radio pulsars and magnetars that rotate and produce beacon-like beams. And we think this new signal could be a magnetar or a pulsar on steroids.”
The researchers plan to detect more periodic signals from this source to later use as an astronomical clock – the frequency of the bursts and how it changes as the source moves away from the Earth can be used to measure the rate of expansion of the universe.
Source: Trash Box
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