Scientists still not sure.
Fast radio bursts have always been a mysterious phenomenon to scientists. An intense pulse of radio waves from outer space that lasts for a very short time has led to many speculations. Now, a study conducted by a group of scientists about the brightest ever radio burst recorded by a telescope in Australia is giving new insights into the subject.
The burst dubbed FRB 150807 was recorded by the Parkes telescope in southern Australia in August 2015. Though the burst had lasted for less than half a millisecond, scientists have been able to deduce some conclusions about the origin of the blip. A research report on the radio burst has been published in Sciencemag.org.
Though research has helped understand the origin of the burst, scientists do not have a consensus on fast radio bursts. Some are of the view that the bursts are flames produced in the atmospheres of certain stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. Others argue they are caused by cosmic collisions such as a neutron star (a collapsed core of a large star) colliding with a black hole in a distant galaxy. There are also speculations that the flames could be some signals sent by aliens.
“We don’t understand what the population of objects is and how often any given object bursts, or how far away they really are,” Jim Cordes of Cornell University told National Geographic.
A primary analysis of the distance estimates of the bursts points towards a cosmic home which is billions of light years away. But, a group of scientists thinks that they might be less energetic events occurring behind cloudy nebulas in our own galaxy. The quantity of energy contained in each burst can only be ascertained if the origin of the burst is found out.
A fast radio burst was first discovered by radio astronomers using Australia’s Parkes telescope to search for pulsed radio emissions from spinning neutron stars called pulsars. The first one named Lorimer burst remained a mystery until other telescopes made similar discoveries.
But, interpretation of the bursts has been a difficult task mainly due to their short duration, the limited resolution provided by the telescopes, and uncertainty of the sky positions.