A new astronomical event has arisen, but this is considered the only one of its kind, since there are no records of a similar behavior in history. The event has generated great controversy around the world, as many have come to believe that we are finally being contacted by an extraterrestrial civilization or that there are unknown entities that are trying to communicate with us through radio waves.
Scientists are completely amazed, because they have detected a strange behavior of a distant galaxy from which radio waves come, the emission of these signals occurs periodically every 16 days. The duration of these waves is detected for 4 days and then disappear for 12 days, which generates a rather strange behavior pattern.
The finding was made by researchers belonging to Cornell University in New York, in the United States. They reported that something or someone was sending signals in powerful gusts of wind (FRB) from a galaxy located a few million light years from us, with a periodicity of 16 days.
The Canadian Hydrogen Intesity Mapping observatory determined that the signals emitted from that galaxy showed a periodicity from September 2018 to October 2019.
likely responsible
A team of astrophysicists determined that the source of the repetitive radio bursts comes from an object they have named FRB20180916B (this object is invisible to the naked eye) that is associated with the galaxy SDSS J015800.28+654253.0. (located regarding 486 million light years from our planet). He is recognized by the strange way he has of sending radio waves towards our planet.
To reach the aforementioned conclusion, the most powerful and largest radio telescopes in the world were used, from the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON). Thanks to these observations, it was possible to estimate that the responsible object might be a magnetar, which is an isolated and highly magnetized neutron star. This rules out the probability that it is the rotation of a binary system, since at first several models suggested that it might be two stars that were rotating with respect to each other and the periodicity was caused by the stellar wind around them.
It is not the first time that radio waves coming from space have been reported, however, this has been the only event that has shown a repetitive period and outside of the behaviors previously detected.
Galaxy SDSS J015800.28+654253.0
The researchers mention that this galaxy is regarding 7 times closer than the only other repeating burst that has been located, and more than 10 times closer than any of the few non-repeating FRBs that scientists have managed to identify. Therefore, this finding is considered unique in its kind.
This article was published in the magazine Nature
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