National Post (National Edition)
FIVE THINGS ABOUT SPACE SIGNALS
15 MYSTERIOUS BURSTS
Astronomers hunting for signs of intelligent alien life have recorded 15 mysterious radio signals coming from a dwarf galaxy three billion light years away. The signals were picked up by a team at the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, part of the Breakthrough Listen project co-launched by Prof. Stephen Hawking in 2015.
WHATEVER PRODUCED THEM IS STILL THERE
Although the latest fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are unlikely to have come from an alien civilization, the researchers say it proves their equipment is working and ready to pick up signs of life if they exist. FRBs are radio signals from somewhere in deep space that last for just milliseconds. The new bursts came from an unknown source, named FRB 121102, discovered in 2012. At first scientists thought the signals were the fallout from a catastrophic event, such as a supernova, but when they were recorded again in 2015 and 2016 it suggested that whatever object produced them was still there.
LEFT THEIR GALAXY A LONG TIME AGO
In the new experiment, scientists from the University of California scanned the same galaxy at a higher frequency to detect the original bursts, and found 15 more. Explanations for the signals range from rotating neutron stars with extreme magnetic fields, to energy sources used by aliens to power spacecraft. Whatever they are, they left their galaxy when our solar system was just two billion years old, and life was just taking hold on Earth.
‘AS WE DO MORE STUDY, WE FIND MORE WEIRD THINGS’
Dr Vishal Gajjar, at UC Berkeley Research Centre, said: “We really have no idea about where they come from. We currently know of 30 to exist and only one is known to repeat, which means we can look at it again and again. If some form of life would like to produce a signal that is detectable to another civilization, this could be a way to do it, but I don’t think they are coming from intelligent civilizations. There are more theories than the number of sources. As we do more study, we find more weird things.”
THE EQUIPMENT IS WORKING WELL
Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal who is chairman of the US$100 million global astronomical initiative, said, “Some journalists have written that this is evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence. Nobody is claiming this. But it confirms that their equipment is working well.”