Distant galaxy sends out 15 high-energy radio bursts

From the Source

Breakthrough Listen, an initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the universe, has detected 15 brief but powerful radio pulses emanating from a mysterious and repeating source – FRB 121102 – far across the universe.

And here you can see them;



Pretty amazing really. Whether or not you think these are alien in origin, the quantum of energy that's being observed here is pretty mind blowing;

Anyway, the fun bit;

Possible explanations for the repeating bursts range from outbursts from rotating neutron stars with extremely strong magnetic fields – so-called magnetars – to a more speculative idea: They are directed energy sources, powerful laser bursts used by extraterrestrial civilizations to power spacecraft, akin to Breakthrough Starshot's plan to use powerful laser pulses to propel nano-spacecraft to Earth's nearest star, Proxima Centauri.

Bolding by me.

One of the reasons I love to read about FRBs is that the possibility of the source being intelligent alien is actually taken very seriously and openly discussed as a possibility among people who are waaaaaaayyyyyyyyy smarter than I am, and I reckon that's cool.

Continuing on;

"Bursts from this source have never been seen at this high a frequency," said Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center and of the Breakthrough Listen program. Read more at: phys.org...

One of the other things I think about with these FRBs is, is there any modulation in these signals that we just don't have the technology to discern. If there was that would be ........ well, out of this world.

So what do you reckon ATS, Alien or something more mundane but probably amazing anyway.

It's only a matter of time..

a reply to: myselfaswell

That explains why my cell phone was getting awesome coverage! I'm dropping Verizon. Hey Aliens can you hear me now???

a reply to: myselfaswell

Maybe it's the real Star Wars Galaxy since it's "a galaxy far far away" and George Lucas' original home.

If it's "them", why don't they send data encoded in the FRB?

LOL was getting ready to post this in the SETI forum(wonder if normal uses can anyway). Pretty interesting, aliens or the bog mother ship? Also, wanted to point out that with trying to post, it let me know the title was already in use, new feature ATS? Nice

a reply to: bananashooter

why don't they send data encoded in the FRB

That's what I'm suggesting.

Maybe they have and we just can't see it.

if they really wanted to communicate they coulda added some obvious things. such as 3 strong bursts together, followed by 9, follow by 27. the chances of that are insane to happen randomly. (such as a star explosion sending out strong gamma)

a reply to: makalit

they coulda added some obvious things. such as 3 strong bursts together, followed by 9, follow by 27. the chances of that are insane to happen randomly.

What are the chances of 15 300 microsecond pulses ?

originally posted by: myselfaswell

What are the chances of 15 300 microsecond pulses ?

Well i'm just stating it'd help. Anyway MHz is the altitude of frequency, meaning just how much, correct? So we should measure by how much it is increasing. the rate at which it increases seems to be that of a perfect circle. of course that depends on the timeframe of the graph we use, does it not? if it was squished more to shorter time, would not the line by more vertical and less circular?

it appears each burst is exactly evenly spaced. like when it happened it happened such as .-.-.-.-. and not .-.----.--.---------.-----.-. (the lower)
this could be natural. but measure by how much the frequency increases per each pulse. no one has done this yet.

if the frequency increases by a set amount, this could be sentient.

The signal has got to be more then 2 million years old. Since the nearest neighboring galaxy andromeda is 2 million light years away.

So if it's ET's they are either long dead or several million years more advanced then when they originally sent the signal.


EDIT: Make that Billions of Years Old

Regardless of FRB 121102's ultimate source, when the recently detected pulses left their host galaxy, our solar system was less than 2 billion years old, noted Steve Croft, a Breakthrough Listen astronomer at UC Berkeley. Life on Earth consisted only of single-celled organisms; it would be another billion years before even the simplest multi-cellular life began to evolve. Read more at: phys.org...

originally posted by: SolAquarius
The signal has got to be more then 2 million years old. Since the nearest neighboring galaxy andromeda is 2 million light years away.

So if it's ET's they are either long dead or several million years more advanced then when they originally sent the signal.

made me think- if there was intelligent life scattered- we should be getting a lot more signals. even if they are 2 million light years away. but then you realize we've only been measuring and detecting said signals for 50 years. a mere millisecond


edit: well guys.
Here is the the graph with the frequency. looks like it increases by the exact amount. gets a bit sketchy in the middle (uneven) but that's likely cause it got blurred the dots but where they were clear, they are even.

i dont know if this suggests sentience. i think it does actually.

Sorry guys i'm a disinfo agent STOP LOOKING AT THIS NO I'M MELTING

a reply to: makalit

The first TV transmission was in 1928 meaning it has only traveled 89 light years through space. The milky way galaxy alone is 100,000 light years in diameter. I would guess with all the background radio noise from stars it would be pretty challenging to pick up on that original TV signal.

But who knows maybe some nearby star system is watching leave it to beaver and I love lucy right now.

Has anybody considered the possibility that stars are intelligent life and this may be a way for them to communicate?

a reply to: JDeLattre89

Ooooh, I like that postulation! Stars are like nerve cells, firing data, and the whole Galaxy becomes aware...then the Universe becomes conscious and reacts...yes, that's good.

originally posted by: Boscov
a reply to: JDeLattre89

Ooooh, I like that postulation! Stars are like nerve cells, firing data, and the whole Galaxy becomes aware...then the Universe becomes conscious and reacts...yes, that's good.

As above so below?

a reply to: SolAquarius

Remember the movie Explorers?

en.wikipedia.org...(film)

www.youtube.com...

originally posted by: starwarsisreal
a reply to: myselfaswell

Maybe it's the real Star Wars Galaxy since it's "a galaxy far far away" and George Lucas' original home.

Yeah the signal is coming from a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Maybe it's the death star blowing up.

a reply to: SolAquarius

Beat me to it, but here it is anyway;

a reply to: SolAquarius

Or maybe its galactic tic-tac-toe, Circle takes the square! We have to counter with an X, but we better win or stalemate, or we lose! I don't want to see what happens when we lose!