Radio
signals have been repeatedly received from outer space by scientists. These
bursts have only been repeated one other time and the second one only served to
make the matter more mysterious and increased the possibility of us
understanding who or what is sending these signals across from more than a
billion light years distance to us.
Scientists
have come up with many theories to explain these bursts, ranging from the
explosion of a star to messages from extraterrestrial beings. However, the
mystery has still not been solved and there aren’t many clues out there to
point us to a source.
These
signals are barely millisecond long but the energy it takes to fling them out
so far is equal to how much energy the sun produces in the space of one year.
Interestingly, the latest set of signals saw six repetitions and they all
originated from one place. Though we’ve received over 60 such signals, seeing
repetition is very rare.
According to
Ingrid Stairs, an astrophysicist at UBC who is also part of the CHIME team,
they’d only ever picked up one repetitive signal before this and the existence
of another could mean that there is more to come. The more they receive and the
more sources they can locate, the easier it will be to solve questions as to
the purpose and origin of these signals. The scientists working on these
signals asserted this in the information released in Nature.
Receiving
these repeating signals also means that researchers can work on understanding
why they are different from the signals that don’t repeat. This, in turn, will
lead them to more information about where they are from and will help them
intercept any more that might come.
The
scientists received around a dozen signals over a span of 21 days. These bursts
have opened up a veritable mountain of information and now the team is working
as hard as possible to find the source. Putting all the information together
might point them towards the answers they need about the wholly unique
atmosphere these signals may be coming from and the kind of tech needed by
extraterrestrials (if they do exist) to send these signals across billions of
light years.
According to
Arun Naidu of McGill University, who is also a part of the team, while the
question of the source is very interesting, it is also worth noting that the
range of frequencies received so far has been very wide. Many devices can’t
emit frequencies lower than a certain range.
These bursts
were received by the team working as part of Canada’s Hydrogen Intensity
Mapping Experiment located in British Columbia. Researches fear that given the
wide range, their instruments might not be able to detect some signals that are
much below the range they are programmed to work with. Even with this fear,
they were able to get more information than they thought they would.
Over a dozen
bursts were detected and the lowest frequency was 400 MHz. Seven bursts were
detected at this frequency. This indicates the possibility of there being
bursts which are below the range capable of being detected by their equipment.
Tom
Landecker, a member of CHIME who belongs to the National Research Council of
Canada, has revealed that whatever the sources are, they can emit these signals
at low frequencies and those which escape their atmosphere don’t scatter too
widely so scientists are able to pick up on them. This offers information about
the kind of atmosphere they’re coming from but there are many more questions
that are yet to be answered.