Brief pulse detected by Arecibo telescope appears to come from far beyond our galaxy

 

Is it a message from far beyond out own galaxy?

A brief mysterious pulse detected by Arecibo telescope has baffled boffins.

The discovery of a split-second burst of radio waves by scientists using the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico raises major new questions over what caused it

The finding by an international team of astronomers, published July 10 in The Astrophysical Journal, marks the first time that a so-called ‘fast radio burst’ has been detected using an instrument other than the Parkes radio telescope in Australia.

WHAT COULD IT BE?

Exactly what may be causing such radio bursts represents a major new enigma for astrophysicists.

Possibilities include a range of exotic astrophysical objects, such as evaporating black holes, mergers of neutron stars, or flares from magnetars — a type of neutron star with extremely powerful magnetic fields.

‘Another possibility is that they are bursts much brighter than the giant pulses seen from some pulsars,’ notes James Cordes, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University and co-author of the new study.