New Radio Signal From Space, possible new WOW signal.

A strange phenomenon has been observed by astronomers right as it was happening -- a 'fast radio burst'. The eruption is described as an extremely short, sharp flash of radio waves from an unknown source in the universe. The results have been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.


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Over the past few years, astronomers have observed a new phenomenon, a brief burst of radio waves, lasting only a few milliseconds. It was first seen by chance in 2007, when astronomers went through archival data from the Parkes Radio Telescope in Eastern Australia. Since then we have seen six more such bursts in the Parkes telescope's data and a seventh burst was found in the data from the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico. They were almost all discovered long after they had occurred, but then astronomers began to look specifically for them right as they happen.

Radio-, X-ray- and visible light

A team of astronomers in Australia developed a technique to search for these 'Fast Radio Bursts', so they could look for the bursts in real time. The technique worked and now a group of astronomers, led by Emily Petroff (Swinburne University of Technology), have succeeded in observing the first 'live' burst with the Parkes telescope. The characteristics of the event indicated that the source of the burst was up to 5.5 billion light years from Earth.

Now that they had the burst location and as soon as it was observed, a number of other telescopes around the world were alerted -- on both ground and in space, in order to make follow-up observations on other wavelengths.

"Using the Swift space telescope we can observe light in the X-ray region and we saw two X-ray sources at that position," explains Daniele Malesani, astrophysicist at the Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen.

Then the two X-ray sources were observed using the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma. "We observed in visible light and we could see that there were two quasars, that is to say, active black holes. They had nothing to do with the radio wave bursts, but just happen to be located in the same direction," explains astrophysicist Giorgos Leloudas, Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen and Weizmann Institute, Israel.

Further investigation

So now what? Even though they captured the radio wave burst while it was happening and could immediately make follow-up observations at other wavelengths ranging from infrared light, visible light, ultraviolet light and X-ray waves, they found nothing. But did they discover anything?

"We found out what it wasn't. The burst could have hurled out as much energy in a few milliseconds as the Sun does in an entire day. But the fact that we did not see light in other wavelengths eliminates a number of astronomical phenomena that are associated with violent events such as gamma-ray bursts from exploding stars and supernovae, which were otherwise candidates for the burst," explains Daniele Malesani.

But the burst left another clue. The Parkes detection system captured the polarisation of the light. Polarisation is the direction in which electromagnetic waves oscillate and they can be linearly or circularly polarised. The signal from the radio wave burst was more than 20 percent circularly polarised and it suggests that there is a magnetic field in the vicinity.

"The theories are now that the radio wave burst might be linked to a very compact type of object -- such as neutron stars or black holes and the bursts could be connected to collisions or 'star quakes'. Now we know more about what we should be looking for," says Daniele Malesani.

Source

If you are hinting that it may be an alien signal, then the thing to do would be to slow down the recording of the signal by tens or hundreds of times. A short burst to us could be a Seinfeld episode to the folks on the other end. Or thousands of times, and you get "The English Patient".

originally posted by: Aleister
If you are hinting that it may be an alien signal, then the thing to do would be to slow down the recording of the signal by tens or hundreds of times. A short burst to us could be a Seinfeld episode to the folks on the other end. Or thousands of times, and you get "The English Patient".

A radio wave that fast would be on par with a blue tooth signal.
If it were TV show or a song, or a recording, it would not be that fast.

a reply to: Akatsuki
Lets hope its not like this:
Another planet in the depths of the void just like ours,with intelligent life-they have tamed radio waves for communication just like us two legged freaks on what we call "Earth".

They use a kind of encryption burst format,that is as yet beyond our knowledge and capabilities.
We have recieved a transmission,and with time we shall decode it.

Lets hope it is a friendly species.
Although the odds are against that.

originally posted by: Aleister
If you are hinting that it may be an alien signal, then the thing to do would be to slow down the recording of the signal by tens or hundreds of times. A short burst to us could be a Seinfeld episode to the folks on the other end. Or thousands of times, and you get "The English Patient".

I devoutly hope it is something other than their version of "The English Patient."

Or our version, for that matter.

Another tidbit for my theory that we are reaching out.

New Horizons relay station near Pluto.
Internet on Mars.
Now this.

Cool find. Thanks.

originally posted by: strongfp

originally posted by: Aleister
If you are hinting that it may be an alien signal, then the thing to do would be to slow down the recording of the signal by tens or hundreds of times. A short burst to us could be a Seinfeld episode to the folks on the other end. Or thousands of times, and you get "The English Patient".

A radio wave that fast would be on par with a blue tooth signal.
If it were TV show or a song, or a recording, it would not be that fast.

That's by our technology. If it were a civilization that is a million or even a billion years more advanced than we are that signal could hold as much information as the library of congress.

originally posted by: buster2010

originally posted by: strongfp

originally posted by: Aleister
If you are hinting that it may be an alien signal, then the thing to do would be to slow down the recording of the signal by tens or hundreds of times. A short burst to us could be a Seinfeld episode to the folks on the other end. Or thousands of times, and you get "The English Patient".

A radio wave that fast would be on par with a blue tooth signal.
If it were TV show or a song, or a recording, it would not be that fast.

That's by our technology. If it were a civilization that is a million or even a billion years more advanced than we are that signal could hold as much information as the library of congress.

Radio waves don't hold that much information. Radio waves are created in nature all the time a short bust simply means it has a chance it's not natural.

So then, the signal has been estimated to have occurred about 5.5 thousand million years ago. A little before our sun was born. According to modern estimates. I can understand why it's interesting but another WOW signal? In what way can they be compared? Thanks for OP by the way.

A distance of 5.5 Billion light years? Chances are it is astronomical in origin, not from Alien life. People thought quasars were ET trying to contact us at first due to the regular bursts of radio waves they emit. The article even says as much - scientists don't seem to think it is aliens in the slightest, it's just the ATS crowd making that assumption and it is most likely incorrect.

If it was Aliens, then they are most likely not only long dead, but not even aiming it at us in the first place, considering our own star system wasn't even properly formed when they emitted it, much less our planet or any life on it.

I don't want to be the party pooper or anything, but there is really no reason to believe it is coming from another civilization.
After all. We know so very little about the universe.

Don't get me wrong, it would be absolutely fantastic if it was. But let's not get carried away before we have all the information.

When are they going to release the recordings from the telescopes and satellites to the public so we can get more eyes on this?
And not just some graphs on a PDF.

a reply to: Jonjonj

Nowhere in that article does it claim to be a "Wow" signal, or even mention the word "Wow" or even "Alien". It's the OP's own wording and somewhat misleading.

a reply to: strongfp

Radio waves can hold extremely large amounts of information, it's all in the encoding and the frequency you use.

originally posted by: stumason
a reply to: strongfp

Radio waves can hold extremely large amounts of information, it's all in the encoding and the frequency you use.

Communications over long distances (interstellar or in this case intergalactic) would probably benefit greatly from being very high bandwidth with very short duration

originally posted by: stumason
a reply to: Jonjonj

Nowhere in that article does it claim to be a "Wow" signal, or even mention the word "Wow" or even "Alien". It's the OP's own wording and somewhat misleading.

Yes, i realise that. You may appreciate that our opinion of the story coincide. My comment was obviously aimed at the OP's conclusion. However, thanks for the story is never a bad thing.

A radio wave that fast would be on par with a blue tooth signal. If it were TV show or a song, or a recording, it would not be that fast.

lol. Don't you mean short in duration?

a reply to: Jonjonj

Yes, I know your opinions jive with mine - I just felt it needed to be clarified to all reading that the title of the thread does not coincide with the contents of the OP.

a reply to: SpongeBeard

Probably, but in this case the source is most likely a natural one. Unnatural radio waves have a certain structure to them that makes it obvious it is from an unnatural source.

originally posted by: strongfp

originally posted by: buster2010

originally posted by: strongfp

originally posted by: Aleister
If you are hinting that it may be an alien signal, then the thing to do would be to slow down the recording of the signal by tens or hundreds of times. A short burst to us could be a Seinfeld episode to the folks on the other end. Or thousands of times, and you get "The English Patient".

A radio wave that fast would be on par with a blue tooth signal.
If it were TV show or a song, or a recording, it would not be that fast.

That's by our technology. If it were a civilization that is a million or even a billion years more advanced than we are that signal could hold as much information as the library of congress.

Radio waves don't hold that much information. Radio waves are created in nature all the time a short bust simply means it has a chance it's not natural.

Please understand that humans have only taken a few baby steps on a thousand mile journey when it comes to understanding the universe. Our knowledge of how radio wave can be manipulated is limited to our knowledge of them. There could be information imprinted on every sub atomic particle.

This is a very interesting story OP thanks for bringing to the attention of the community S&F for that even though your title is A bit misleading, I can forgive you for that. Its an exciting find none the less. I enjoy news story's like this in the OP.


It would be cool if it was a msg that could be decoded from a civilization billions of years old on the other side of the galaxy.