Scientists at the SETI Institute‘s Allen Telescope Array (ATA) have made a remarkable observation, detecting a unique pattern in a repeating “fast radio burst” (FRB) in space originating beyond the Milky Way, challenging our current understanding. This offers a new perspective on the mysterious nature of FRBs, capable of producing as much energy in seconds as the Sun does in a year.
The focus of this research is a highly active repeating FRB named FRB 20220912A in space. During 541 hours of observation, ATA recorded 35 bursts from this FRB, revealing an interesting shift in frequency within the radio wave spectrum. This shift transformed into a pattern mimicking a ‘cosmic sliding whistle’ behavior, previously unseen in FRBs.
Postdoctoral researcher Sofia Sheikh from the SETI Institute highlighted the significance of this discovery. This work narrows down the source of FRBs to extreme objects like magnetars, but no current model can fully explain all observed features of FRBs, including this new pattern.
The bursts from FRB 20220912A were found to shift downward in frequency, resembling the descending tone of a sliding whistle when converted into musical notes. This unique behavior allowed the team to determine the brightness cutoff point of this FRB’s bursts and shed light on its overall contribution to the cosmic signal ratio.
This discovery brings us one step closer to solving one of the universe’s most intriguing puzzles and opens new avenues for understanding the origins and mechanisms of FRBs.
Source: https://www.cioupdate.com.tr/haberler/uzay-teleskobu/
