Scientists Detect Numerous Mysterious Radio Bursts from Deep Space
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Scientists found eight more mysterious repeating radio bursts emanating from deep space, which more than quadruples the known number of signals from earlier this year.
The new signals were found by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope, and give scientists a much broader data set that they hope may help finally unlock their origin, DailyMail reported.
With the discovery, described in a paper submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the number of repeating radio bursts signals has climbed to 11.
According to Nature, the results of a separate observation from researchers in Australia have yet to be published, but bring the number of findings this month alone to nine total.
In addition to increasing the amount of data available to astronomers, the recent findings are significant for the type of radio bursts identified.
Signals described by researchers repeat, meaning they can be studied for extended periods of time, unlike their one-off counterparts which come and go after being detected only once.
Because of the latter's ephemeral nature, tracing their origin has been an extremely difficult task, though not altogether impossible.
In a previously unprecedented feat, scientists traced a one-off radio burst to its origin last month.
According to an Australian-led team operating out of the Gemini South telescope in Chile, the signal was traced to a galaxy roughly 3.6 billion light-years away.
The recent spike also means that scientists can be begin comparing and contrasting the signals and test new theories.
In a paper published by Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Vikram Ravi last month, the scientist posited that all of the radio bursts could actually be repeating, just at frequencies not previously detected.
'Just as some volcanoes are more active than others, and you can think a volcano is dormant because it has not erupted in a long time,' physicist Ziggy Pleunis of McGill University told ScienceAlert.
Already, scientists have noticed some difference between what are thought to be repeaters and their one-off iterations. For instance, repeating signals descend in frequency, giving what scientists have called a 'sad trombone' effect.
Aiding scientists in the quest to unlock the mystery, will be a machine-learning technique unveiled this month that automatically picks up the bursts when they reach Earth.
