Mysterious radio signal traced to dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years away

I found this interesting. I guess using math and other smart guy stuff they figured out where one of the mysterious radio signals was coming from.

At least what galaxy it is coming from . A dwarf galaxy 3 billion light years away.

I dont know how they can figure that stuff out but maybe with time they can pinpoint it even further.

The article says the leading theories on the source of these signals is not ET , but the other theories they offer just sounds like a bunch of guessing to me. But who the hell am I ?

It did say that this signal from this galaxy is the only one that has ever been known to repeat its self. So that sounds promising right?

A mysterious signal that has confounded scientists for years has been traced to a spot in the sky more than 3 billion light-years away.

Almost a decade after the first fast radio burst (FRB) was discovered, an international team of researchers has pinpointed the origin of one such signal as a dwarf galaxy in the pentagon-shaped constellation Auriga.
Scientists originally thought the signal -- sporadic bursts of radio waves -- was coming from within the Milky Way itself, or from our closest galactic neighbors, but a new report in the journal Nature confirms it emanates from a tiny galaxy 1% the mass of our own.
"These radio flashes must have enormous amounts of energy to be visible from over 3 billion light-years away," Cornell University researcher Shami Chatterjee said in a statement

www.cnn.com...

Sry if this has already been covered

Could intrinsic variable stars put out radio signals or waves or is it possible. Astronomy isn't my main area of interest.

So I'm not one of those science guys and my understanding of light years as a distance is limited to my very human size.
My understanding of radio signals is a bit better and I know that they travel slower than light.
Given the distance and speed of any radio waves these signals of sorts were sent out when our planet was in its infancy and pretty much a ball covered in ice.
It will probably turn out to be a pulsar. But a real old one.

a reply to: PlasticWizard

I think pulsars register as radio waves but it's 4AM and I am way too lazy at this moment to look all that up. Lol

originally posted by: Sillyolme
So I'm not one of those science guys and my understanding of light years as a distance is limited to my very human size.
My understanding of radio signals is a bit better and I know that they travel slower than light.
Given the distance and speed of any radio waves these signals of sorts were sent out when our planet was in its infancy and pretty much a ball covered in ice.
It will probably turn out to be a pulsar. But a real old one.

Probably right. But where is the fun in that? It could be ET signaling just not meant for us. (`~__~`)

a reply to: Sillyolme

My understanding of radio signals is a bit better and I know that they travel slower than light.

No they don't

Actually, radio waves travel very quickly through space. Radio waves are a kind of electromagnetic radiation, and thus they move at the speed of light. The speed of light is a little less than 300,000 km per second. At that speed, a beam of light could go around the Earth at the equator more then 7 times in a second.

source

a reply to: goou111

What's crazy is that is where the signal came from 3 billion years ago. It's quite possible that galaxy doesn't even exist anymore!

a reply to: goou111

Oh I know. I can fantasize a civilization billions of years ahead of ours but how old is the universe? How far ahead can any civilization be given the time it takes for planets to form and become habitable?

Fun to think about.

Beyond my imagination I'm betting.

a reply to: Vector99

Its possible, but not entirely likely that the galaxy from which this signal originates, no longer exists.

You have to consider that the galaxy we are in right now is much older than that, and while the Milky Way is a very different, and altogether larger beast than the dwarf galaxy which is the origin of this signal, it is very probable that the structure of that little galaxy still exists. Ordinarily, even a dwarf galaxy would continue to exist in some form until it was absorbed or pulled apart by passing close to, or collision with another, larger galaxy.

a reply to: TrueBrit

I did mean more so of colliding with another galaxy to form anew, not so much dying off. In about 4 billion years our galaxy will also no longer exist (theoretically)

a reply to: Vector99

Indeed. There is a good chance that it will have collided with our closest neighboring galaxy by that point, which will likely result in some elements of both galaxies being violently destroyed by direct impact with one another, and also in some elements merely finding their place in a new galactic wheel. Its also possible that the end result will be somewhat closer to a full merger, with individual star systems remaining largely the same, save for the collective medium in which they complete their dance of eons.

a reply to: TrueBrit

On a galactic scale it should be beautiful, I believe it's theorized it will become a ball cluster style galaxy.

There is a good chance that it will have collided with our closest neighboring galaxy by that point, which will likely result in some elements of both galaxies being violently destroyed by direct impact with one another

and the crazy, hard to grasp concept of that is there will likely be little to no actual PHYSICAL impacts, only gravitational, and we are so far out in a spiral of our galaxy to us we wouldn't even notice other than the night sky changing. Well actually Earth will likely have been engulfed by our own local star by then, but the rest of the solar system will get a kick-ass new screensaver!

a reply to: Vector99

While it is likely that, as you say, there will be little direct impact between elements of the two galaxies, gravitational shock could cause asteroid belts and even planets to move within the relative volume of their solar systems, creating collision paths from previously stable orbits. But yes, you are right to make that distinction.

However, with regard to whether we would notice or not, I would suggest that we would notice rather up close! If we have survived as a species long enough to experience that period in galactic, universal history, then the chances are that we will have moved away from Earth, or at least expanded to become a multi planetary culture by that point. While that would make us more secure as a species, because of the distribution of our species meaning that it is harder to wipe out in one single event, it is also the case that the more of us are out there, in more places throughout the galaxy, that a greater percentage of our species would be directly or indirectly effected by a conjoining of the galaxies.

a reply to: TrueBrit

However, with regard to whether we would notice or not, I would suggest that we would notice rather up close! If we have survived as a species long enough to experience that period in galactic, universal history, then the chances are that we will have moved away from Earth

This I truly hope starts happening sooner than later. It annoys the hell out of me when people cry to fix our own planet before we move to and destroy other planets. If we don't we will eventually lose in the cosmic lottery, ask the dinosaurs...oh wait.

a reply to: Vector99

If people start trying to ask the dinosaurs, that will necessitate an ill advised jaunt into the world of gene manipulation and probably several sequels of declining quality. We should certainly avoid that if we can!

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: Vector99

If people start trying to ask the dinosaurs, that will necessitate an ill advised jaunt into the world of gene manipulation and probably several sequels of declining quality. We should certainly avoid that if we can!

You literally just described the entire Jurassic Park movie series

a reply to: Vector99

Yes... there only needed to be one of those. A little like the Matrix films, they certainly did not get better, the more of them there were. Its like the inverse ninja theory. The fewer they are, the stronger the individual ninja becomes, but the more there are, the weaker they appear.

In any event, where these FRB are concerned, I find the statement that the dwarf galaxy is just one percent the mass of our own to be VERY interesting. I wonder how much of its volume is taken up by whatever lay at its center? It is increasingly common knowledge, that galaxies tend to contain super massive black holes at their centers, whose gravitational pull keeps the rest of the material in the galaxy in some sort of relative order. With a dwarf galaxy being so small, I wonder whether it even has such a feature, and if it does, what percentage of its total mass is taken up by that feature.

Fascinating concepts, dwarf galaxies. So many questions occur when faced with the idea!

3 billion light years.... So Earth was only 1 billion years old when it was sent out.

Imagine their capabilities now if they survived the test of time.

It also puts our own search and want to leave the system in perspective dont it. These guys tried to do so 3 billion years ago... we have no idea what they ended up achieving.

We NEED to invent a means of transportation that can bend space... litterally. There's no discussing it.
The only reason for inventing sub light engines would be in case we find out we need some materials from our neighbouring planets to complete the lightspeed engine or to invent a device that bends space and what ever we can make.

a reply to: TrueBrit

With a dwarf galaxy being so small, I wonder whether it even has such a feature, and if it does, what percentage of its total mass is taken up by that feature.

We've found them, and logically it makes sense that all galaxies would contain a supermassive black hole, even if it isn't so supermassive of a galaxy.

Astronomers using data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and ground observation have found an unlikely object in an improbable place -- a monster black hole lurking inside one of the tiniest galaxies ever known.
link

The black hole is five times the mass of the one at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. It is inside one of the densest galaxies known to date -- the M60-UCD1 dwarf galaxy that crams 140 million stars within a diameter of about 300 light-years, which is only 1/500th of our galaxy’s diameter.

And even the smallest of galaxies are seeming to have a supermassive blackhole

Located at the heart of a dwarf galaxy known as RGG 118, the black hole contains about 50,000 times more mass than the sun. It's therefore less than half as heavy as the second-smallest known supermassive black hole, researchers said.

link