Astronomy experts with the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and
the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico have discovered six new Fast
Radio Bursts (FRBs) emitting from a region far beyond our Milky Way
galaxy, according to a recent report in the Astrophysical Journal.
We don’t know whether aliens will come in peace – or to kill every single living being on our planet
World’s largest fully steerable radio telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia
The
discovery — made in the direction of the Auriga constellation — has
prompted wild speculation that aliens could be trying to get in touch.
It
is significant considering the fact that at least 17 FRBs have now been
detected in this area and is the only known instance in which these
signals have been found twice in the same location in space.
The
region where the signals are coming from, dubbed FRB 121102 by
scientists, is located about 3 billion light years away from earth.
Five
of the recently found FRBs were detected with the Green Bank Telescope,
while the other was recorded by the Arecibo Observatory, “for a total
of 17 bursts from this source,” the report says.
The signals were also found earlier this year and in 2012.
According
to experts, the FRBs could be the result of two things: solar flares
from a neutron star or extra-terrestrials. But it’s still too early to
tell.
The confirmed detection of alien signals would be one of the the biggest discoveries in human history
“Whether
FRB 121102 is a unique object in the currently known sample of FRBs, or
all FRBs are capable of repeating, its characterization is extremely
important to understanding fast extra-galactic radio transients,” the
scientists write in their report.
In 2015, physicist John Learned —
with the University of Hawaii at Manoa — and Michael Hippke, with the
Institute for Data Analysis, published a research paper arguing that
repeating FRB waves had a 1 in 2,000 chance of being coincidental.
They
claimed the radio bursts either came from a man-made spy satellite or a
super-dense star, which would regularly emit bursts of radio waves.
Earlier
this year, a team of astronomers from Laval University in Quebec
published a report saying they had detected strange signals in a small
cluster of stars.
Using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey,
the pair analysed the spectra of 2.5 million different stars and
discovered at least 234 that were producing the signals.
“We find
that the detected signals have exactly the shape of an ETI
[extraterrestrial intelligence] signal,” wrote Borra and Trottier.
“Although unlikely…there is also a possibility that the signals are due
to highly peculiar chemical compositions in a small fraction of galactic
halo stars.”
Earlier in 20156, genius scientist Stephen Hawking
said humanity must seek out intelligent life before it finds us – or we
could be wiped out.
Hawking, 74, says a technologically advanced alien race could send our vulnerable race the way of the dodo if we’re not careful.
No comments :
Post a Comment