A mysterious radio signal from deep space flashes the Earth 2,000 times in two months

Powerful signals are transmitted from space to Earth at an unprecedented speed.

Scientists say the source has been recorded for a repeating high-speed radio explosion discovered last year that caused more than 1,800 explosions within two months.

The hyperactive nature of the explosion allowed researchers to identify a host galaxy and its source.

the name of the thing FRB 20201124A, the object was discovered using the Five Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) in China.

It is described in a research paper led by astronomer Heng Shu of Peking University in China.

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are a mysterious space phenomenon.

High-intensity emissions typically last a fraction of a second and their source was unknown until recently.

Several thousand have been captured by scientists since the first was discovered in 2007.

All FRBs are unusual, but the newfound one was especially strange.

More than 82 hours of observation over a two-month period, according to the article published in the journal Nature, FAST 1863 detected a volcanic eruption.

Its polarization and signal strength fluctuated dramatically, making it the first FRB to show these kinds of variations in its waves, said study author Feiyin Wang from Nanjing University. inverse.

Evidence so far indicates that the source is a magnetar, a neutron star with a strong magnetic field.

However, the way the polarization has changed over time suggests that another organism may be contributing to the signals.

“These observations brought us back to the drawing board,” said astrophysicist Peng Zhang of the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

FRBs are clearly more enigmatic than we ever imagined. More multi-wavelength observational campaigns are needed to reveal the nature of these things.”

All FRBs discovered so far come from far too far to make clear where they came from.

Only a few have been replicated, and fewer are still in a predictable pattern.

This makes their study notoriously difficult, which means that their ancestors have eluded scientists for more than a decade.

The signals are believed to come from massive explosions in deep space that dissipate in less than a second.

In 2020, researchers said they accurately identified radio bombs emitted from An object known as a magnet.

Magnetars are a type of neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field—only a handful of them are believed to be in the Milky Way.

Physicists had previously speculated that magnetars could produce FRBs, but there was no evidence to prove this.

This means that the signals do not come from alien civilizations, a theory that has been promoted by some UFO hunters but rejected by scientists.

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