Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown • Hacker News Board

Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

#61

Post by jrichardshaw » Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

DrBazza wrote: post #21

If it's periodic, it's something orbiting something. If it's powerful enough to be seen 500 million ly away, one of the two orbiting objects is going to be a black hole.

There's a few ways to do it (and the press release is surprisingly good and mentions most of them), but certainly one of the more obvious explanations is that the emitting object, is in a binary system with some other object, and that modulates the emission mechanism somehow.

I don't think either needs to be a black hole though. What I consider the most plausible candidate for emission is probably magnetars (i.e. neutron stars with extremely strong magnetic fields), and there's no reason the companion would need to be a black hole either, you just need a companion that gives a 16 day orbit and that's very easy to do with another star or neutron star.

Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

#62

Post by tartoran » Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

If it’s regular like clockwork it’s nothing but a cog in the universe we’re looking at, all in all interesting to study. Next irregular signal will be even more interesting though that does not necessarily imply alien communication

Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

#63

Post by spenczar5 » Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

rhacker wrote: post #55

dreamcompiler wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a time when people thought a ball of fire moving across the sky every day must be alive. The universe is full of strange phenomena perfectly explainable by physics. This is no different.

It's really not "perfectly" explainable by physics since we don't understand all aspects of physics yet. If you said "mostly" explainable by physics I would believe you. Also, if an alien happens to be shining a beam at us rhythmically, that's also "explained" by physics but we won't actually know if the source is a natural phenomena or an alien shining his super flashlight at us.

No, that was the right phrasing. It isn’t perfectly explained, but its perfectly explainable.

Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

#64

Post by odyssey7 » Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #39

perlgeek wrote: post #6

Since it hasn't come up yet: whenever a new astronomical phenomenon is detected, people think "Aliens!" as the reason. In fact, when the first pulsar was discovered, it was (somewhat jokingly) called LGM-1 for "little green men". I'm sure the news hype cycle will come up with similar ideas this time, and I'm just as sure that we'll find a perfectly reasonable explanation not involving intelligent, extraterrestrial li…

There was a time when people thought a ball of fire moving across the sky every day must be alive. The universe is full of strange phenomena perfectly explainable by physics. This is no different.

Eventually physicists are going to end up trying to explain signs of intelligent life as new Physics and calibrate their models according to it.

"Greetings from ___." "Oh, hello... uhh, so those signals were your house and not a trefoil of two black holes and a quasar?

Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

#65

Post by reedwolf » Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 5:00 PM UTC

magicMonkeyPaw wrote: post #56

jrichardshaw wrote: post #54

One of paper authors here. I'll try and answer some of the questions in the comments. It seems like so long ago the paper actually went public onto the arXiv, but I guess the press embargo just ended.

are you looking forward to reading all the crazy people's takes on why it's actually aliens that you found?

I haven't seen the original paper (maybe that should've been linked instead?), but the MIT press release is dripping with "Not it's saying aliens..." innuendo.

It's kind of hypocritical to use nod-wink-aliens-clickbait to drum up media attention, then ridicule the first rube who asks if aliens could possibly be involved.

Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

#66

Post by jrichardshaw » Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

networkimprov wrote: post #60

jrichardshaw wrote: post #54

One of paper authors here. I'll try and answer some of the questions in the comments. It seems like so long ago the paper actually went public onto the arXiv, but I guess the press embargo just ended.

When are you scheduled for an appearance on the Event Horizon podcast? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3qvETKooktNgCvvheuQDw

Actually looks like Shriharsh, one of the folks in the collaboration has already done it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc8FsImLUEU

I guess he probably didn't talk about this because of the press embargo though.

Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

#67

Post by pso » Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

jrichardshaw wrote: post #54

One of paper authors here. I'll try and answer some of the questions in the comments. It seems like so long ago the paper actually went public onto the arXiv, but I guess the press embargo just ended.

Pure speculation, isn't the most interesting time period in the signal the transition from signal to no-signal (and back again)? How high is the resolution of the sensors? Is it possible that some frequencies are blocked fractionally earlier than others? At a fine enough temporal resolution, there might be more clues regarding the source.

Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

#68

Post by jfkebwjsbx » Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

spenczar5 wrote: post #63

rhacker wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not "perfectly" explainable by physics since we don't understand all aspects of physics yet. If you said "mostly" explainable by physics I would believe you. Also, if an alien happens to be shining a beam at us rhythmically, that's also "explained" by physics but we won't actually know if the source is a natural phenomena or an alien shining his super flashlight at us.

No, that was the right phrasing. It isn’t perfectly explained , but its perfectly explainable.

It is not perfectly explainable by us, though.

And it may not actually perfectly explainable ever. Nothing guarantees we can get a perfect understanding of physics.

Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

#69

Post by sradman » Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

jrichardshaw wrote: post #54

One of paper authors here. I'll try and answer some of the questions in the comments. It seems like so long ago the paper actually went public onto the arXiv, but I guess the press embargo just ended.

Have any additional FRBs been detected since the publication of the paper?

Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

#70

Post by jrichardshaw » Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

reedwolf wrote: post #65

magicMonkeyPaw wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you looking forward to reading all the crazy people's takes on why it's actually aliens that you found?

I haven't seen the original paper (maybe that should've been linked instead?), but the MIT press release is dripping with "Not it's saying aliens..." innuendo. It's kind of hypocritical to use nod-wink-aliens-clickbait to drum up media attention, then ridicule the first rube who asks if aliens could possibly be involved.

That's a fair comment. I mostly think the MIT press release is pretty good and doesn't go down that route, except for the title, which is definitely hinting at it.

Also agree that it would make sense to replace the link with the actual paper, or an article about it. University press releases are mostly there to play up their own contribution.