Researchers detect first repeating radio bursts to come from distant galaxy
Aug. 31 (UPI) -- Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million project to find signs of alien life in the universe, announced Wednesday that it detected 15 powerful, repeating radio pulses coming from a galaxy 3 billion light years away.
The radio activity was firs detected by Breakthrough Listen postdoctoral researcher Vishal Gajjar with the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia.
Fast radio bursts from across the universe have been detected before, but this marks the first time they have been repetitious, suggesting they're not random but rather a planned disbursement from an advanced civilization used to power power space aircraft.
Such mechanics are already in the works on Earth, where Breakthrough Starshot is working on a plan to use "powerful laser pulses to propel nano-spacecraft to our solar system's nearest star, Proxima Centauri," the University of California, Berkeley, said in a press release.
Read more: https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2017/08/31/Researchers-detect-first-repeating-radio-bursts-to-come-from-distant-galaxy/2411504158119/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Last edited Fri Sep 1, 2017, 05:58 AM - Edit history (1)
Last week's detection of a series of 15 signals allowed scientists to determine that the signals were coming from the dwarf galaxy.
The Newsweek article concludes with the statement, "Despite widespread speculation, the possibility of the signals coming from an advanced alien civilization has been largely ruled out." 
REQUEST REPRINT OR SUBMIT CORRECTION
From the August 30 Newsweek article at http://www.newsweek.com/frb-fast-radio-bursts-deep-space-breakthrough-listen-657144 :
Using the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, scientists with the Breakthrough Listen initiative—a massive project dedicated to finding signs of intelligent alien life—recorded 15 repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) on August 26. The discovery was announced as an Astronomer's Telegram and will be described in further detail in a forthcoming scientific article, according to a statement from Breakthrough Listen.
FRBs last just a few milliseconds and appear to be coming from deep space. Because FRBs have an extremely short duration, and because scientists usually find them in data only after the event has taken place, pinpointing their origin has not been possible.
. . .
On edit: Clarifying that the signals were first discovered in 2016, and that the recent series of 15 signals have allowed scientists to track their origin to the dwarf galaxy.
It's freaking 100 meters in diameter, the largest steerable radio telescope on Earth.
Awesome!
