Science & Tech

China's biggest telescope is receiving mysterious signals from three billion light years away

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The largest telescope in China has reportedly detected more than 100 radio signals that are coming from a source believed to be three billion light-years away.

The mysterious pulses are emanating from a high-energy source somewhere in the universe, with researchers at the facility continuing to monitor them with the hope of obtaining further analysis on just what they might be.

Chinese Academy of Sciences researchers report that they were monitoring the FRB121102 signal which was first sported by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico back in 2015.

Since then the telescope has detected at least 100 more bursts from FRB121102, which have allegedly started since late August, which is the largest amount of pulses ever detected.

Before you get excited these aren't alien signals but are created due to some sort of phenomenon in deep space. Some are believed to be 'repeaters' but others are just 'one-offs.'

According to the Metro, there is a theory that the pulses are actually bursts from neutron stars colliding with black holes. Another theory suggests that they could be neutron stars with powerful magnetic fields also known as 'magnetars.'

Vikam Ravi, an assistant professor at the California Institute of Technology, is quoted as saying:

This finding tells us that every galaxy, even a run-of-the-mill galaxy like our Milky Way, can generate an FRB. Finding the locations of the one-off FRBs is challenging because it requires a radio telescope that can both discover these extremely short events and locate them with the resolving power of a mile-wide radio dish. The theory that FRBs come from magnetars was developed in part because the earlier FRB 121102 came from an active star-forming environment, where young magnetars can be formed in the supernovae of massive stars but the host galaxy of FRB190523 is more mellow in comparison.

The Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope, which is also known as FAST or Tianyan, lies in Pingtang County, Guizhou, which is in the southwest region of China.

The mammoth structure measures colossal five-hundred metres in diameter and is the largest and most sensitive radio observatory ever constructed.

HT Daily Mail

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