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Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown

news.mit.edu

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

#91

Post by 7thaccount »

magneticnorth wrote: post #89

Earth has had life for more maybe as long as 4 billion years, and in all that time there has been less than 200 years when a species had the intelligence, the motivation, and the technological advancement to send communications into space. I know the odds of this being life are (literally) astronomically low, but every time I hear news like this, I can't help hoping there's another species out there that found the wi…

Same feelings. It's never aliens, but it sure would be cool to meet a benevolent super advanced species or catch an intergalactic soap opera with octopus people. Really, any indication that we're not alone.

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

#92

Post by baxtr »

> This new FRB source, which the team has catalogued as FRB 180916.J0158+65, is the first to produce a periodic, or cyclical pattern of fast radio bursts. The pattern begins with a noisy, four-day window, during which the source emits random bursts of radio waves, followed by a 12-day period of radio silence. The astronomers observed that this 16-day pattern of fast radio bursts reoccurred consistently over 500 days of observations.

I wonder how these aliens manage to work only for 4 days and then rest for almost 2 whole weeks. They must be quite advanced.

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

#93

Post by undersuit »

baxtr wrote: post #92

> This new FRB source, which the team has catalogued as FRB 180916.J0158+65, is the first to produce a periodic, or cyclical pattern of fast radio bursts. The pattern begins with a noisy, four-day window, during which the source emits random bursts of radio waves, followed by a 12-day period of radio silence. The astronomers observed that this 16-day pattern of fast radio bursts reoccurred consistently over 500 days…

Well the aliens producing the Soap being broadcast probably work during the whole 2 weeks before they release the newest episode.

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

#94

Post by gota »

antepodius wrote: post #76
plutonorm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great to hear! If some credible evidence of aliens did appear, where do you think it would come from? Tabby's Star like data? atmospheric spectra? FRB's? other? Would absolutely love to hear your thoughts :)

My guess is a nanotech slug impacting earth and turning us into grey goo/a matrioshka brain factory.

This seems a reasonable and straightforward scenario and I'll prepare accordingly

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

#95

Post by jrichardshaw »

mturmon wrote: post #84
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.

Could you say something about how you are now, or might later, coordinate fast follow up observations in other wavelengths or with other instruments?

This is a good question. FRBs pose a lot of challenges for follow up because most of them are not observed to repeat (this doesn't mean they don't repeat, just that they haven't been seen to). So you see them for a few seconds and then they're gone. To follow up, you need to know where exactly to look, and most of the instruments like CHIME used to discover FRBs don't have the resolution to see exactly where on the sky it was. You can maybe pin point it to within 1/4 degree, but need more like 1000th degree resolution to meaningfully follow up in other wavebands.

The most useful follow up has been for repeating FRBs. What happens there is that the discovery telescope tells you were it is roughly, and you know it repeats, so you can point a high resolution radio telescope (something like https://www.evlbi.org) to get a more precise location and then you can follow up with other telescopes.

One thing telescopes like CHIME are trying to do in the near future is to build their own long baseline station to give much higher resolution, such that they can get localisation on bursts which don't repeat, and do better follow up.

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

#96

Post by SubiculumCode »

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.

Is it fair to say that leading hypotheses for this kinds of events include an orbiting body, leading to the periodicity?

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

#97

Post by jrichardshaw »

sradman wrote: post #69
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?

Many.

I'm not super involved on the FRB side of CHIME, so I'm not 100% clear what is public and what isn't. But you can an idea from public info around the internet. I think the last total number made public was over 700 in March this year, and the previous one 30 in October 2018 (https://aasnova.org/2020/03/13/chime-detects-even-more-repea...).

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

#98

Post by techbio »

api wrote: post #90
antepodius wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is a nanotech slug impacting earth and turning us into grey goo/a matrioshka brain factory.

That already happened. Living cells are nanotechnology. Something loaded with them impacted billions of years ago, and we're currently working on AI and rockets.

Source, please.

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

#99

Post by jrichardshaw »

admiralspoo wrote: post #73

What a garbage press release for 6 month old news. MIT's reputation continues to decline.

To be slightly fair, the policies of the journals have a lot to do with this. I'll try and explain:

This paper was submitted to Nature as it would be fairly high profile, and Nature does now allow you to put in on the arXiv at submission, which was done in January. Since then it has been going through peer review, and being queued up to get published in the journal which finally happened on June 17th. However, during that whole time there is a press embargo. So although you may have seen it back in January, that was because a few outlets picked it up by scanning the arXiv themselves, and no one within the collaboration has been allowed to talk about it to the press, and no universities to publicise it in the intervening time. That embargo has presumably just been lifted which is why this is all coming out now.

Because of the embargo you wouldn't have seen quotes and comments from people involved in the initial coverage back in January, and even if I'd noticed it getting posted to HN back in January I would have not been allowed to comment on it like I'm doing now.

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

#100

Post by api »

techbio wrote: post #98
api wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That already happened. Living cells are nanotechnology. Something loaded with them impacted billions of years ago, and we're currently working on AI and rockets.

Source, please.

It was intended as a joke, like the parent.
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