Astronomers Find Mysterious Light Spot Radio Waves From Another Galaxy

Radio signal illustration (Jorge Salvador / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - A few days ago the earth received a mysterious radio signal from outer space. This phenomenon is not the first time this has happened. And on a recent discovery of the signal astronomers began to find the bright spot where it came from.

Quoting CNN, the phenomenon of the emergence of this mysterious signal is known as a fast radio burst (FRB). It is said that this signal came from a small galaxy about three billion light years from Earth.

It is not yet certain where the signal came from. However, thanks to research on the signal sent from the FRB, known as 121102, it is slowly starting to be revealed.

As is known, the FRB phenomenon was first revealed in 2007. While there are thousands of FRBs that are thought to come from outer space every day. However, the most obvious are two, namely FRB 180916.J10158 + 56 and FRB 121102. Both have different patterns.

FRB 121102 was first identified in 2014 by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. Then it was detected again in 2016, when it made FRB 121102 the only signal that had occurred more than once.

Now an international team led by astronomers Jodrell Bank in the UK using the Lovell radio telescope 76 meters in diameter has managed to reveal the exact pattern on FRB 121102. This was done by detecting 32 bursts of radio waves that lasted five years.

Behind the FRB signal pattern

Now astronomers have successfully detected patterns in FRB 121102. The pattern is that radio signal transmissions are repeated every 157 days. They emit signals for 90 days, followed by a period of silence of 67 days.

"Until now, only one other recurring FRB was known to exhibit such a pattern," said University of Manchester astronomer Kaustubh Rajwade was quoted as saying by CNN. "A pattern tells us that the object that generates the FRB may be in orbit with another astrophysical object," he said.

Of the patterns detected, the researchers believe the FRBs are caused by giant stars, neutron stars or black holes. Indeed, this cannot be confirmed, but what is clear is that it can already refute the notion that this radio signal comes from aliens.

In the future, the researchers will try to find other FRBs. And see if the multiple types of FRB have the same pattern. "Answering these questions will bring us closer to the true source of the FRB," said Rajwade.