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| Mysterious Space Radio Signals Baffle Scientists Again |
Astronomers have discovered another mysterious, powerful, and recurring radio burst, which could bring them one step closer to uncovering the secrets behind this strange phenomenon.
A new paper by an international consortium of astrophysicists, published in Nature this week, details the new discovery and describes how it mysteriously fires weaker signals between its large, repeating bursts, something scientists have only seen once before.
What sets fast radio bursts (FRBs) - unusual pulses of radio signals emitted from deep space that have baffled astronomers for more than a decade - apart from other radio signals is their extreme strength and a short length.
This last mysterious radio burst called FRB 190520B was first detected in 2019 by a team of astronomers using the five hundred-meter-high China Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST).
Since then, the team has been trying to locate the source of the signal, as detailed in their new study, scientists have been able to trace the signal back to the vicinity of a dwarf galaxy about three billion light-years away.
And while most of the FRBs discovered so far appear to have been one-off, some are known to repeat at regular intervals.
What makes this latest FRB wonderfully different is the fact that it also emits weaker radio waves between its big bursts.
So far, only another specific FRB has done the same thing - FRB 121102, which was first discovered in 2012.
As Caltech astronomer and study co-author Casey Law told Space.com, "The biggest surprise to me was the realization that the new FRB appears to be a 'perfect' twin of an earlier discovery."
Scientists hope that the similarities - and differences - between these two FRB discoveries will be useful in discovering their causes, and Yu Wenfei, a co-author with the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, told Space.com: "I'm optimistic... the mystery of the FRB will be solved by investigating such eruptions." extreme radio.”