Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown
1–10 of 186 posts
Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown
#2My first thought was that this sounds like a pulsar, and I was surprised to not see that among the list of possible phenomenon. After looking it up, I still wasn't quite sure why these couldn't be pulsars. Is it because the period is much higher than typical pulsars?
Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown
#3My first thought was that this sounds like a pulsar, and I was surprised to not see that among the list of possible phenomenon. After looking it up, I still wasn't quite sure why these couldn't be pulsars. Is it because the period is much higher than typical pulsars?
The article suggests it could be a spinning neutron star, which is what a pulsar is. But a pulsar produces an extremely regular sequence of pulses. (Well, actually it emits a continuous beam of radio waves, but its rotation causes the beam to point towards any given observer at regular intervals.)
This article describes a source that seems to start and stop at regular intervals of several days (much longer than any known pulsar's rotational period) but within the active intervals, the bursts appear to be random. That suggests a more complex mechanism is at work.
Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown
#4Another day, another periodic pulse detected
Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown
#5My first thought was that this sounds like a pulsar, and I was surprised to not see that among the list of possible phenomenon. After looking it up, I still wasn't quite sure why these couldn't be pulsars. Is it because the period is much higher than typical pulsars?
One explanation might be a pulsar circling something.
Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown
#6Since 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 life forms.
Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown
#7> For the most part, these detections were one-offs, flashing briefly before disappearing entirely.
I realize there is most likely an explanation that doesn’t require intelligent alien life, but that screams Dark Forest Theory.
Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown
#8Probably just some aliens from some advanced civilization Far far away.
Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown
#9They didn’t mention a simpler solution: random emitter orbits behind something / Is occluded for the silent period?
Re: Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown
#10My first thought was that this sounds like a pulsar, and I was surprised to not see that among the list of possible phenomenon. After looking it up, I still wasn't quite sure why these couldn't be pulsars. Is it because the period is much higher than typical pulsars?
The article suggests it could be a spinning neutron star, which is what a pulsar is. But a pulsar produces an extremely regular sequence of pulses. (Well, actually it emits a continuous beam of radio waves, but its rotation causes the beam to point towards any given observer at regular intervals.) This article describes a source that seems to start and stop at regular intervals of several days (much longer than any k…
I just throw some gasoline on the "It must be Aliens!" theory (to which I do not subscribe!) and point out that heavily compressed data looks random...