Fox News Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are perhaps the most mysterious anomaly in space, with many having unknown origins. According to a new study, an FRB has been spotted coming from a galaxy 500 million light-years from Earth and it’s repeating every 16 days.
And no one knows why.
Known as FRB 180916.J0158+65, this FRB sends out radio wave bursts for a period of four days, stops for a period of 12 days, then repeats itself. The initial 28 patterns were first observed between September 2018 and October 2019, according to a pre-published study. “We conclude that this is the first detected periodicity of any kind in an FRB source,” the researchers wrote in the study.
‘MYSTERIOUS RADIO BURSTS’ IN OUTER SPACE DETECTED BY ALIEN-HUNTING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
“The found location is radically different from the previously located repeating FRB, but also different from all previously studied FRBs,” said Kenzie Nimmo, a doctoral student at the University of Amsterdam, in a statement. “The differences be tween repeating and non-repeating fast radio bursts are thus less clear and we think that these events may not be linked to a particular type of galaxy or environment. It may be that FRBs are produced in a large zoo of locations across the universe and just require some specific conditions to be visible.”
It’s unclear what’s causing the pattern to repeat, but the study’s abstract suggests there is “a mechanism for periodic modulation either of the burst emission itself, or through external amplification or absorption, and disfavor models invoking purely sporadic processes.”
From a slowly rotating source comes to mind.