Broadcasting from Deep Space, a Mysterious Series of Radio Signals

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/science/radio-bursts-universe-astronomy.html

by dnetesn • 8 years ago

46 39 8 years ago

I've read several times about this signal, but none of the stories come with an audio signal or any kind of data, no matter how raw or processed or cleaned up.

But there are plenty of sources for the Wow signal, for example.

Do scientists keep this kind of data secret nowadays?

everyone• 8 years ago

Maybe no-one bothered to make an audio track. You can make audio based on any variable that changes over time (eg. One could make an audio track based on a certain stock price) but how would that be useful?

Did you look at the papers? I would assume the data is in there. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0867-7

wcoenen2• 8 years ago

Here is the first paper (from 2007) reporting a fast radio burst of extragalactic origin: https://arxiv.org/pdf/0709.4301

See page 12.

Since then there have been many papers about FRBs. Typically you can find them on arxiv.

wcoenen2• 8 years ago

There was an interview with Shriharsh Tendulkar of the CHIME team (experiment mentioned in the article) on the Event Horizon youtube channel: https://youtu.be/7JIXhDQ38zk

hliyan• 8 years ago

Found this article to be a little more substantial: https://www.seti.org/new-fast-radio-burster-why-excitement

This bit is particularly interesting:

But you can safely bet that aliens are not the cause of FRBs. Why? The bursters are seen all over the sky, that’s why. The same sort of signal is coming from galaxies that are generally separated by billions of light-years. So how could aliens organize so much of the universe to engage in broadcasting the same sort of signal?

Lucent• 8 years ago

I've long held an unsupported belief that life anywhere in any form would "converge" upon only a few interesting things left to do after having mastered rearranging atoms and forces in any configuration they desire.

Not only is there likely an ideal, optimized way of sending information long distances, I suspect there also a very limited number of things a matrioshka brain would care to broadcast or receive, like the values of some fundamental constant.

Saying "hi" for fun to other civilizations isn't even something we do on our own planet with our own people. We only talk to people for specific reasons, even if we're unaware of those reasons. We'll go out of our way to avoid a homeless person's greeting rather than risk learning something about/from him.

brox• 8 years ago

Perhaps the life forms with long-term success have learned that it is not prudent to broadcast your location; the smaller the chance of other civilisations knowing about your existence the better.

matt4077• 8 years ago

People do have a tendency to wave at strangers, when either one is in a non-car vehicle. I. e. a boat, Train, balloon, etc.

syedkarim• 8 years ago

>Saying "hi" for fun to other civilizations isn't even something we do on our own planet with our own people.

Actually, ham radio operators do exactly this. They literally send out messages out into the ether with the hopes of someone replying.

QSL: https://rsgb.org/main/get-started-in-amateur-radio/operating...

fernandopj• 8 years ago

Saying "hi" for fun to other civilizations isn't even something we do on our own planet with our own people.

We do that all the time, in as many ways as we can think of. From the top of my head:

- amateur radio

- sending lasers signals to the moon and waiting for it to get back

- chatting with random strangers on internet

- the Arecibo message on space

- SETI is basically trying to catch an alien "hello"

- sending "messages on bottles"

Really, sending "hi" in imaginative ways for no reason is a very human thing to do

colordrops2• 8 years ago

I beg to differ:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record

ryanmercer• 8 years ago

I've long held an unsupported belief that life anywhere in any form would "converge" upon only a few interesting things left to do after having mastered rearranging atoms and forces in any configuration they desire.

Like plaguing Picard and crew on the USS Enterprise.

YeGoblynQueenne• 8 years ago

> So how could aliens organize so much of the universe to engage in broadcasting the same sort of signal?

Er, inter-galactic empire?

If we're going to start imagining aliens with hyper-advanced super-technology, why stop? We can imagine aliens that can do anything they like.

Then again, there is nothing that says some alien species can't have a lifespan of a few billion years, enough to make the trek from one galaxy to the next, with time to spare for lunch. Perhaps those bursts are their inter-galactic Skype, sending selfies back home: "Me standing in front of that hot new Supernova we just spotted!".

Like I say, we can imagine anything we like.

renholder2• 8 years ago

So how could aliens organize so much of the universe to engage in broadcasting the same sort of signal?

My uneducated guess: Their version of an atomic clock?

(I warned you it was an uneducated guess...)

JohnJamesRambo• 8 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Authenticator

rangibaby2• 8 years ago

It’s probably intergalactic TV like sports, infomercials, or something religious

/edit or a cellphone network

colordrops2• 8 years ago

I really don't like these statements that so assuredly close out one possibility on some mysterious phenomenon through a fallacious argument. We don't know what these signals are. We don't know everything about the universe. How are we so sure what it is not?

I mean, it only took me 5 seconds to come up with some technically not impossible (though improbable) hypothesis. What if that is the signature of a worm hole drive kicking in? That would explain why it's everywhere.

andrewstuart• 8 years ago

As they say on PBS SpaceTime "It's never aliens."

dubrocks• 8 years ago

Just because scientists can’t understand something doesn’t make it “mysterious.”

CamperBob2• 8 years ago

Hmm. What would be a better definition for "mysterious," if not "something not understood?"

air7• 8 years ago

I think a common distinction is that a mystery is something that isn't just unknown, but something that's not possible to be known. Beyond human ability to know. It's used in religious contexts.

1024core• 8 years ago

pops of low-frequency radiation, emitting more energy than the sun does in a day

That's an insane amount of energy.

TheOtherHobbes• 8 years ago

That's an insane amount of energy to waste if you're trying to do something useful with it.

Which implies that the energy being used is even more insanely huge and these massive bursts are the relatively trivial overspill, or that it's a natural phenomenon which doesn't care about efficiency.

user234683• 8 years ago

Bit of a coincidence that this article was also posted here regarding the loop quantum gravity prediction of black hole to white hole transitions, which is one theoretical explanation: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v11/127

Models suggest that several observed astrophysical phenomena could be related to the black-to-white-hole transition [8]. Among these are fast radio bursts (FRBs) and certain high-energy cosmic rays

However, since this particular FRB case is one that repeats (most of them are one-time events), I'm wondering if this theory still applies. Black holes seem like too "clean" of an object to have diverse behavior.

Broadcasting from Deep Space, a Mysterious Series of Radio Signals

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