Astronomers detect 15 signals from mysterious object in distant galaxy

[CGI_Ram]

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/techa...-galaxy/ar-AAr3s20?li=AAadgLE&ocid=spartandhp

Astronomers detect 15 signals from mysterious object in distant galaxy

While looking for signs of intelligent life in the universe, astronomers have detected 15 fast radio bursts from a distant galaxy.

These poorly understood phenomena are short pulses of radio emission, just milliseconds long, believed to be coming from rapidly spinning neutron stars or black holes in distant galaxies. A less popular theory is that they're signs of extremely powerful spacecraft from alien civilizations.

This particular fast radio burst (FRB), called FRB 121102, is of particular interest as it is the only known one to be repeating, something that astronomers can't yet explain.

Earlier this month, astronomers using the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia (a collection of radio telescopes) not only found 15 more bursts, but found them at a higher radio frequency than was ever observed before, the astronomers said in their findings published in The Astronomer's Telegram.

"It's not surprising that we've found 15 more from this source; we've been detecting many of them over the past few years," Paul Scholz, an astronomer who studies FRBs with the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in Penticton, B.C., told CBC News. "The one thing that's unique about these [new ones] is that they are at a higher frequency than we've ever seen before."

Scholz, who was not involved with the new discovery, was with McGill University when he and a team of astronomers discovered FRB 121102 to be a repeater. In 2016, a McGill team was able to locate the source of the strange FRB.

At the time the signals left its host galaxy, Earth would have been two billion years old, less than half its current age. The only living things on the planet would have been single-celled organisms.

Solving the mystery

As though the object wasn't strange enough, it also behaves like no other FRB. Typically, objects that emit similar signals, such as pulsars, do so in a smooth fashion across many frequencies. But that's not the case with FRB 121102.

"So it's kind of perplexing," Scholz said.

Scholz said that there could be reasons such as the signal being distorted between its source galaxy and Earth.

In the coming months, a new telescope in B.C. called the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is expected to begin its research into FRBs, with the possibility of discovering several a day, something that Scholz is looking forward to seeing.

"It's a mystery that needs to be solved," Scholz said.

 

[CGI_Ram]

I found this article really fascinating and mysterious.

Paging @bluecoconuts ... are we going to be okay?

 

[Selassie I]

One theory I've heard is that it could possibly be the result of 2 blackholes interacting somehow.

But I'm just gonna go ahead and let the cat out of the bag right now. It's an advanced alien civilization that is sending out a distress signal.

 

[bluecoconuts]

I found this article really fascinating and mysterious.

Paging @bluecoconuts ... are we going to be okay?

Probably. There's a few options here.

First, it's just an anomaly and it's nothing... Well not nothing, but not intelligent life, which is what obviously everyone is hoping for and jumping to conclusions. From a scientific standpoint, it's likely what they hinted it, neutron stars or a blackhole or some other natural phenomenon.

But we'll explore option two because it's more fun... Until you think about it. Option two is that there's advanced aliens and they sent the signal.

First we have to establish that this thing is several billion light years away, meaning that the signal left several billion years ago... Meaning that if it was a being, it's almost assuredly long dead. However the species may or may live on.

Assuming the species did not prioritize space travel and colonizing other worlds, then unless their host star is a red dwarf, the planet would most likely no longer be habitable, if it was even still around and not swallowed by their home star.. If the star is a red dwarf, in theory they could still be there, but most likely not. The problem with red dwarfs is that they live for a very long time (to the best of our knowledge, red dwarf stars have a lifespawn longer than the age of our universe), and burn their fuel at lower temperatures to do this... Blue stars live fast and die young, they're burn really hot, but that means they burn the fuel faster.. Red dwarf stars are the opposite, burn slow and live long. However since they're burning slower and cooler, the planet must be significantly closer in order to be in the habitable zone of the star. So close in fact that most likely the atmosphere of the planet would be blown away by the stellar winds, making the planet not habitable afterall. This isn't confirmed, mostly just theory... It's something that I'm actually working on trying to figure out... (Or was until funding was taken from us, but that's a different story)

Anyway, so assuming that the plant was around a normal star, similar to our own, and the species did in fact figure out how to travel and colonize other worlds, we have to wonder... How long did it take?

Look at how fast humans have progressed from when we first sent radio waves out from Earth, now imagine where we'll be in a few billion years? Automatically if humans are alive then that means we're no longer living on earth.. Even before the Sun begins to die and expands into our orbit, long before that... The lifespan of Earth's habitability is significantly less than many assume.. So it's safe to assume that if Aliens did send the message and their species are still alive, they've learned how to colonize other worlds. Have they learned how to travel between galaxies? Who knows, maybe.

If they did and they don't know we're here, then it doesn't really matter. We couldn't contact them back, at least not quick enough to mean anything in our lifetime.

And if they know we're here? That leaves three options.

The least likely is that they will want to share their knowledge with us. I'll expand on this later, but most likely we're not even worth their time. If we can't stop killing ourselves over control of a fraction of our tiny little insignificant world, why would they think we're ready to be represented as a planet?

The second option is that they want to colonize us... By force... And unlike what Hollywood would like us to think, we'd be fucked. This is a species that has a several billion year head start on us, they'd be that much more advanced. Imagine if the cast of Star Trek went back in time and had a war with a group of Cavemen? That's about a 50,000 year technology gap, and it's that wide. That's a pretty scary thought honestly. If that happens, you better hope they want to adopt us as pets, because if they want to kill us, they will.

The third, and most likely option is that they wouldn't care about us. It's possible there could be some sort of test we'd need to pass, a technological achievement we have to reach for them to make contact, but that's not likely. I'll lump in in here because it's the "leave us alone" option. Most likely they're so advanced that they look as us the same way we look at a worm. Think about when you're waking down the street and see a worm.. You don't stop and think about what it's doing, what it's thinking, you don't try to teach it something, why would you? It's a worm, the gap between us and them is so great there's just simply no point, even if you knew where to begin, would they even understand? It's likely that for as advanced as we are, they are so much more advanced that they see us in the same way. Why would they even bother trying to teach us anything?

At that point the only way to reach out to them is to focus on science and technology ourselves and make it so we reach out. That's the best chance of our survival of a species, because if we are the ones that reach out to other species, then we are most likely the more advanced species, or at least advanced enough to hold our own. The only way our species will survive is to colonize other worlds... And hope we do it before someone else finds us.

 

[Loyal]

One theory I've heard is that it could possibly be the result of 2 blackholes interacting somehow.

But I'm just gonna go ahead and let the cat out of the bag right now. It's an advanced alien civilization that is sending out a distress signal.

* 2 billion years old..lol

 

[LesBaker]

People are starving, and killing each other. And we need this..........why?

I wish that all of the issues on the planet got fixed before we worry about this kind of thing.

After all we have 2 billion years to flesh it out right?

 

[Loyal]

I have little belief in flying saucers, unless the physics we consider established theory is absolutely wrong. the only space ships we could ever see would a floating hulk launched a few billion years ago, or a still active craft just about as old with AI machines on board.Space travel takes too long for living things, and AI doesn't need all of the food and water that humans do...Maybe spare parts for the AI instead....anyway, if we receive radio waves from billions of year ago, anyone out there is likely to receive broadcasts of Amos & Andy first (billions of years from now) and they will disregard everything else we say..lol

 

[LumberTubs]

@bluecoconuts

If radio waves are part of the light spectrum how can they be "emitted" from a black hole which is supposed to be so dense that light can't escape?

 

[bluecoconuts]

@bluecoconuts

If radio waves are part of the light spectrum how can they be "emitted" from a black hole which is supposed to be so dense that light can't escape?

When matter is being pulled into the black hole as it gets hotter and hotter it begins to emit higher energy waves such as x-rays, which we can detect. Unfortunately x-rays can't penetrate our atmosphere, so it can only be detected by orbiting satellites. When two black holes merge we can detect the gravitational waves rippling through space time with a radio telescope (radio waves).. We could be detecting when the supermassive black hole in the center of their galaxy merged with another black hole (or it could even be two massive black holes combining to make a supermassive black hole) which means we could be seeing the "early" years of that galaxy... Black holes also change from a low luminosity x-ray state where they emit x-rays or a high luminosity state when they don't as well, and if we find a galaxy large enough (larger than a stellar mass black hole) but not too large (like a supermassive black hole) we can detect that change over via radio waves. When they change states they emit a brief hot fast moving jet of plasma that detect via radio waves.

Recently we discovered RRAT's, rotating radio transients, which are neutron stars that emit radio waves. Normal pulsars emit a bright flash as the neutron star rotates (it's an incredibly massive object, basically take a star larger than our sun and crush it down into the size of NYC, it's really massive, and rotates really quickly), and RRAT's emit a short and not as bright radio wave... The problem is that the RRAT's that we know tend to be more sporadic with their pulses, or at least have a higher pulse to pulse variability, and this one seemed pretty consistent for a bit.

That's what makes this a mystery, but it's one that definitely falls close enough to what we can see from other natural phenomenons to make it more likely another, new type.

 

[LumberTubs]

When matter is being pulled into the black hole as it gets hotter and hotter it begins to emit higher energy waves such as x-rays, which we can detect. Unfortunately x-rays can't penetrate our atmosphere, so it can only be detected by orbiting satellites. When two black holes merge we can detect the gravitational waves rippling through space time with a radio telescope (radio waves).. We could be detecting when the supermassive black hole in the center of their galaxy merged with another black hole (or it could even be two massive black holes combining to make a supermassive black hole) which means we could be seeing the "early" years of that galaxy... Black holes also change from a low luminosity x-ray state where they emit x-rays or a high luminosity state when they don't as well, and if we find a galaxy large enough (larger than a stellar mass black hole) but not too large (like a supermassive black hole) we can detect that change over via radio waves. When they change states they emit a brief hot fast moving jet of plasma that detect via radio waves.

Recently we discovered RRAT's, rotating radio transients, which are neutron stars that emit radio waves. Normal pulsars emit a bright flash as the neutron star rotates (it's an incredibly massive object, basically take a star larger than our sun and crush it down into the size of NYC, it's really massive, and rotates really quickly), and RRAT's emit a short and not as bright radio wave... The problem is that the RRAT's that we know tend to be more sporadic with their pulses, or at least have a higher pulse to pulse variability, and this one seemed pretty consistent for a bit.

That's what makes this a mystery, but it's one that definitely falls close enough to what we can see from other natural phenomenons to make it more likely another, new type.

Thanks man.

I don't understand why these things sometimes get reported as possible intelligent life as if this stuff isn't interesting enough already.

People not only detected these bursts that only lasted a few milliseconds but, as far as I understand, were able to trace the source to a dwarf galaxy 3bn light years away.

To me, that's already incredible without the alien angle that gets added to try to spice it up.

 

[bluecoconuts]

Thanks man.

I don't understand why these things sometimes get reported as possible intelligent life as if this stuff isn't interesting enough already.

People not only detected these bursts that only lasted a few milliseconds but, as far as I understand, were able to trace the source to a dwarf galaxy 3bn light years away.

To me, that's already incredible without the alien angle that gets added to try to spice it up.

I'm the same way... People just jump to alien life because it's what we all want. It's still super exciting to see anything new, because if we can figure it out it brings a deeper understanding of our universe.

 

[OldSchool]

My bad forgot to turn off the TV that night.

 

[bubbaramfan]

For those that want proof that life exsists elsewhere, consider this. If it happened here on earth, why can't it happen somewhere else? Odds are it has.

 

[bluecoconuts]

For those that want proof that life exsists elsewhere, consider this. If it happened here on earth, why can't it happen somewhere else? Odds are it has.

There's approximately 500 billion galaxies in our known universe with possible 50 sextillion habitable planets similar to Earth in our universe, and an estimated 100 billion habitable, Earth-like planets in the Milky Way. Chances are we're not as special as we like to think.

To put that in numbers and show how many that is:

Estimated habitable, Earth-like planets in the Milky Way:
100,000,000,000

Approximately the number of galaxies in our known universe
500,000,000,000

Assuming our galaxy is average, which predictions indicate we are...

Estimated habitable, Earth-like planets in the universe:
50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

That's a lot of fucking planets.

Now try to wrap your head around the idea that our universe is just one of many in a bubble, with an infinite amount of other universes out there.... But that's jumping into the sixth dimension.

 

[LumberTubs]

Based purely on statistics, there has to be life out there somewhere. The issue in my mind is whether intelligent life exists.

Think about all of the different extinction level events that life on earth has had to go through to get to the point where we, as humans, are able to make our existence known to any outside observers. The chances of getting to the point where we are now were miniscule. You'd have to assume that other planets would go through similar extinction level events because they'd presumably be made of the same stuff and would be subject to the same bombardment from space.

 

[bluecoconuts]

Most likely, yes, other planets would have mass extinction events.

It's the Fermi paradox, there odds say one thing, yet there's no signs of it anywhere. The great filter is one way of trying to explain that, but that makes us worry if we're in front of it or behind it...

 

[LesBaker]

When matter is being pulled into the black hole as it gets hotter and hotter it begins to emit higher energy waves such as x-rays, which we can detect. Unfortunately x-rays can't penetrate our atmosphere, so it can only be detected by orbiting satellites. When two black holes merge we can detect the gravitational waves rippling through space time with a radio telescope (radio waves).. We could be detecting when the supermassive black hole in the center of their galaxy merged with another black hole (or it could even be two massive black holes combining to make a supermassive black hole) which means we could be seeing the "early" years of that galaxy... Black holes also change from a low luminosity x-ray state where they emit x-rays or a high luminosity state when they don't as well, and if we find a galaxy large enough (larger than a stellar mass black hole) but not too large (like a supermassive black hole) we can detect that change over via radio waves. When they change states they emit a brief hot fast moving jet of plasma that detect via radio waves.

I was gonna say the EXACT same thing. You beat me to it.

The issue in my mind is whether intelligent life exists.

Do you mean here, or out there? Discuss!

 

[bluecoconuts]

I was gonna say the EXACT same thing. You beat me to it.

Typo and all?! Because I made one, but I can't edit it anymore, so I'm rolling the dice nobody will catch my mistake.

 

[Loyal]

Based purely on statistics, there has to be life out there somewhere. The issue in my mind is whether intelligent life exists.

Think about all of the different extinction level events that life on earth has had to go through to get to the point where we, as humans, are able to make our existence known to any outside observers. The chances of getting to the point where we are now were miniscule. You'd have to assume that other planets would go through similar extinction level events because they'd presumably be made of the same stuff and would be subject to the same bombardment from space.

Yes....that's why the only possible "aliens" we might meet would be centuries old alien based AI....When we look into the night sky we are only seeing the reflections of the distant past. Planets could live and die before we were ever to reach them via spacecraft. Unless the physics that we now trust in is very wrong, I doubt there will ever be first contact with little green men, etc..

 

[nighttrain]

.

Now try to wrap your head around the idea that our universe is just one of many in a bubble, with an infinite amount of other universes out there.... But that's jumping into the sixth dimension.

You ever read any Issac Asimov? good scientist, great author
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