A dispatch from the UK GUARDIAN reports on the latest in other-worldly events…
Astronomers have detected mysterious, ultra-brief repeating energy bursts from deep space for only the second time in history, and some experts suggested they could be evidence of advanced alien life.
The origin of fast radio bursts (FRBs), millisecond-long pulses of radio waves, is unknown, but most scientists say they are generated by powerful astrophysical phenomena emanating from billions of light years outside our galaxy, the Milky Way – such as black holes or super-dense neutron stars merging together.
Some, however, including Prof Avi Loeb, from the Harvard-Smithsonian centre for astrophysics, have posited more outlandish theories, suggesting they could be evidence of incredibly advanced alien technology.
All of this was published in the journal NATURE..
Some basics.. what is a fast radio burst?
It is a high-energy astrophysical phenomenon of unknown origin manifested as a transient radio pulse lasting a few milliseconds on average.
The first FRB was discovered by Duncan Lorimer and his student David Narkevic in 2007 when they were looking through archival pulsar survey data, and it is therefore commonly referred to as the Lorimer Burst. Several FRBs have since been found, including two repeating FRBs.
Although the exact origin and cause is uncertain, they are almost definitely extragalactic.
A new study reports the detection of 19 previously undiscovered FRBs, including the closest one to Earth and the brightest one ever seen. The results boost the total tally significantly; just three dozen or so FRBs had been known previously, with the first detection coming in 2007.
The question now.. are we alone? In this cold and vast expanse of space? Just sitting and spinning…? No one else but us to observe the galaxies that abound? Or are we one in a zillion? They know we are here and we are just trying to find the way to survive and find them?
