(5) More Mysterious Extragalactic Signals Detected

I'm sure I can't be the first to point this out, but the pattern of the bursts spells "HI" backwards in Morse Code.

a reply to: ADAMandEVIL

Well it can't be a pulsar-they are more regular then an old timer with fibre.

Maybe a Binary star system in it's death throes? the increasing rotation might explain the variation or the violent burst. I dunno, I'm an armchair astronomer for a reason.

Here are the wikipedia data from the previous FRB's


Should be interesting to see the dispersion measures on the 5 new ones.

originally posted by: ADAMandEVIL

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, astronomers snagged a two-for-one deal on mysterious blasts of radio waves from other galaxies. An unprecedented double burst recently showed up along with four more of these flashes, researchers report online November 25 at arXiv.org.

Looks like FRB 121002 was a double pulse? -But not a double burst?

More articles back from april:
nationalgeographic

newscientist

a reply to: swanne

Don't pulsars have twin beams radiating out that, if pointed in our direction, are received as double pulses of radio? Light being too diffuse to detect at those distances.

Sorry for the double ignorance, what you're saying needs layman terms…

a reply to: intrptr

Pulsars have indeed two beams coming out of the magnetic poles. But they come out at opposite directions - one at the north and one at the south. As the pulsar rotates on itself, the two beams sweep across space. We see pulsars as flashes because one of the beams (in some pulsars it's the north beam, in some others it's the south beam) happens to cross Earth.



For both beams to cross Earth (and give double flashes, as you describe) is not impossible, just very unlikely - it requires that both the north and south beams cross Earth, which can ony happen if the pulsar's magnetic poles are located at the exact, true equator of the pulsar (90° from the actual rotation pole).

So, long answer made short, your proposition is not impossible, but it would require very rare pulsars.

a reply to: TheElectricAnt

What bugs me is the method used to solve the distance as being "9 billions ly"? Parallax is obviously ruled out because of the sheer distance to Earth. The next best method would be redshift measurement but then how do you measure the redshift of a monochromatic signal whose original frequency cannot be known?

a reply to: Restricted

Hm, interesting!

Could you elaborate on the process you used to arrive at this conclusion? I'd definitively like to take a look.

originally posted by: swanne
a reply to: Restricted

Hm, interesting!

Could you elaborate on the process you used to arrive at this conclusion? I'd definitively like to take a look.

Based on how the signals were described in various articles, chronologically, and knowing Morse Code, I recognized the pattern as "I" (two dots) then "H" (four dots).

a reply to: swanne

Thank you so much for the rundown, nice gif. Rare indeed. Like a CME pointing directly at earth, it hardly ever happens.
But if it is indeed happening, then we must consider it.

What other explanation could there be for such a powerful double burst of radio energy? And if one had such energy why make a communication appear as a Pulsar, however rare?

Besides that I think they are each unique navigation beacons for transversing the cosmos, I mean.

originally posted by: intrptr

What other explanation could there be for such a powerful double burst of radio energy?

Three simple words: we don't know. Exciting, isn't it? Finally a good mystery!

And if one had such energy why make a communication appear as a Pulsar, however rare?

My thoughts exactly. The answer might simply be that the energy pulses are not communication signals, just random natural phenomenon.

Besides that I think they are each unique navigation beacons for transversing the cosmos, I mean.

Hm, I like that idea. The pulse source will need to stay consistent, though. We wouldn't want the beacon to turn itself off while we're in a spaceship some 5 billion light-years from home...

a reply to: swanne

We wouldn't want the beacon to turn itself off while we're in a spaceship some 5 billion light-years from home…

More than one out there…. how many 'light houses' are there? If we assume that travel is somehow instantaneous (or really fast anyway) then its an easy matter to triangulate our position once we think we have arrived at our destination.

Where are the pulsars? Right where they always are. Like ships navigating the hi seas at night, use of the stars is paramount, but would change radically in deep space if we traveled 5 billion light years from home.

Ill be interested when they start recieving tv broadcasts from aliens on other planets. Billions of years old watching a culture long dead.

a reply to: ADAMandEVIL

Maybe its the radio emission from a weapon used in a colossal war between two alien races 9 billion years ago, and the two signals are the two sides annihilating each other (let's hope not)

a reply to: ADAMandEVIL

It may have come from that place, but not necessarily 9 billion years of age. Or what?

Didn't read full article though.


Imagine that a giant spaceship flew by that, and transmitted something, which arrived to us. And when we look at that area, nothing is there, except an old galaxy or something, that may be billions of light years away. So we think "Oh... It's that old!" But it could be something that came from outside our solarsystem a year ago.

a reply to: openminded2011

Would make sense, and why not hope for it?

I imagine there is galactic federations, all with different ideologies.

Imagine these steps:
Man vs man -> Tribe vs tribe -> Settlement vs settlement -> City vs city -> Land vs land -> Nation vs nation -> Planet vs planet -> Solar system vs solar system -> Galaxy vs galaxy

It must continue in this manner. If only one earth is habitable in a solar system ofc. skip planet vs planet.


Just like earth, atm. we have communism, socialism etc. Federations might look at it likewise, we might be inside someones area, lucky or unlucky.
Imagine those tribes on earth that we must leave alone, they may have same rules applied to planets with life. "Let them evolve by themselves."

originally posted by: InnerPeace2012
a reply to: ADAMandEVIL

Wow, and I just had to type "radio signal from out space" in google and you know what, this ain't the first signal received that has baffled Scientists.

[snip]

ETA: This is really blowing my mind folks..all declassified documents relating to UFOs from National Security Agency archives...including information of ET Message (radio signals). Are we not seeing a form of disclosure now are we?

The list of declassified documents

Maybe, but radio signals that "have science baffled" may still simply be from natural causes that science has yet to explain, not necessarily alien signals.

If we are going to call a signal and alien signal, I would hope that they could positively identify it as such, rather than eliminating all known natural causes and saying "if we can't find a natural explanation, then it must be artificial". That's because even if you eliminate "known" natural explanations, there may still be natural explanations that are yet unknown.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: flice

I think the issue here is that these FRBs must be INCREDIBLY INTENSE! Think Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, soaked in nuclear material and in the middle of a fight/make up sex/fight/make up sex cycle, on a hurtling lump of the dying earth, heading into a black hole, while both of them are amped on performance enhancing steriods, HGH, and a cocktail of blood additives created by fermenting the vital fluids of the entire Avengers roll call of heroes through comic book history. That sort of intense.

LMFAO. That was one of the most epic and INTENSE things I've ever read on ats.

I love how our baby tech that has developed in roughly 50-100 years, can state something is 9BILLION earth cycles around the sun in duration, years old.

That just sound ignorant as hell.

To me, statements and puzzlement the like we have read here, proves how much we really don't know.

Reminds me of a child telling his friend "It was THIIIIS big!!"

Yes, interesting and curious as most, but I won't have my mind-gasm over something that has absolutely no way of being verified other then DETECTED and super-roughly estimated in "age".

Anyways; looking forward to developed and detailed research with our limited tech and ways, regarding thsee signals.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Now that IS intense!