KOMPAS.com – Astronomers have detected mysterious signals originating from great distances in the universe.
This signal even took 8 billion years to reach Earth.
This unusual signal was explained by astronomers in a paper published in the journal Science, Thursday (19/10/2023).
In addition, this signal also represents a type of cosmic phenomenon known as a “fast radio burst” or fast radio burst (FRB).
What is FRB?
Reporting from News Week, Thursday (19/10/2023), FRB is an intense but very short radio wave.
These waves have the same type of radiation emitted by cell phones or microwaves originating from distant sources in the universe.
Even though astronomers have the world’s most sensitive radio telescopes and supercomputer systems, looking for FRBs is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
“They only last a fraction of a second,” said the author of the new study at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, Ryan Shannon.
“Most FRBs will not be visible repeatedly, meaning that if we want to understand what they are or where they come from, we have to respond quickly, and gather as much detail as possible about them in the thousandths of a second that they pass by Earth,” he continued.
This FRB, labeled FRB 20220610A, is very important because it is the most distant and oldest discovery to date.
These waves occurred about 8 billion years ago and also had very high energy.
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There were only 50 FRBs detected
To date, only about 50 FRBs have been detected, given the relatively small number of samples and the difficulty in studying them.
Apart from that, the source of these high energy emissions is still a mystery.
“We now know that FRBs originate from distant galaxies. “This is very surprising considering the intensity of the emissions,” Shannon said.
“FRBs are the only type of source known to emit pulsar-like emissions in our Milky Way galaxy which apparently have energies trillions of times lower,” he continued.
So, this has created a big puzzle for astronomers about how it is possible that the emissions emitted could be so strong.
“FRBs are imprinted with the signature of all the gas they pass through. This makes them incredibly useful for probing the weak gas that resides between galaxies,” he continued.
Even though intergalactic space is almost empty, most of the material that makes up stars and the universe is found in this region.
Some evidence suggests FRBs are produced by magnetars
There is some evidence that FRBs are produced by magnetars, which are young neutron stars that experience hypermagnetization.
Neutron stars are dense stars that have approximately the same mass as the Sun, but are only the size of a small city with a very strong magnetic field.
“These stars are the most extreme objects in the universe, so it makes sense that they would be involved in producing extreme radio bursts. Indeed, FRB-like bursts were observed from magnetars in our galaxy in 2020,” Shannon said.
“However, some of the FRB signals found came from places thought to be devoid of magnetism, so it is possible that more than one type of object could produce FRBs. “That would be very interesting,” he continued.
In their latest study, the research team describes the FRB detected on June 10, 2022 by the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) as a radio telescope located in the west of the country.
The researchers then determined the distance and time the FRB traveled between its place of origin and the place it was detected.
Then they discovered that the explosion came from a very distant host galaxy and had traveled 8 billion years before arriving at ASKAP.
“The location of this telescope is ideal for searching for FRBs because it is very remote, which means there are fewer man-made signals that could interfere with the search for FRBs,” said Shannon.
“With ASKAP, we were able to determine the location of the burst at a position close to the constellation Sculptor in the Southern Hemisphere, with sufficient precision to determine which galaxy the FRB came from,” he continued.
This latest discovery has broken the record for the most distant FRB by around 50 percent, and also confirms that such phenomena also occur in very distant galaxies.
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FRB 20220610A emits more energy
Additionally, FRB 20220610A emits more energy in a few milliseconds than the Sun does in 30 years.
However, it is still unclear whether the host of this FRB is a single galaxy or a small group of galaxies.
To determine the true nature of the host requires higher definition images, which can be obtained with observatories such as Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope.
However, the researchers say that this latest study has several implications.
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2023-10-21 06:00:00
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