Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio Burst

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/20/mysterious-energetic-radio-burst/

by givan • 12 years ago

152 81 12 years ago

phenomena.nationalgeographic.com

jpdlla• 12 years ago

Pretty cool seeing this here. I recently met someone who works at the observatory here in the island in a Python user group meeting. I was intrigued by the kind of work he did over there with Python. But was instantly bummed out when he told me how their budget has been so dramatically cut during the past few years. There's some interesting things regarding budget, and one of the latest repairs that had to be done after an earthquake north from Puerto Rico damaged one of the suspension cables that support a 900 ton telescope platform here http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2014/0409-arecibo...

frik4• 12 years ago

Very interesting, thanks for sharing!

Btw. she put many awesome photos of the observatory on her flickr stream: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/

some are categorized in albums:

* Flying over Arecibo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/sets/72157642216845184/

* Sunday Platform Tour: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/sets/72157633399446014/

* Arecibo Observatory: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/sets/72157631700960474/

* The Platform After Dark: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/sets/72157631824663769/

* Sunset from the Lidar Lab: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/sets/72157632834643572/

an old Sun Sparc workstation: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/8111297074/in/set-721576... and https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/13952717471/in/set-72157...

frik4• 12 years ago

I computed a 3D model of the Arecibo Observatory:

3D: http://s15.postimg.org/5czp6yi6j/are_04.jpg

point cloud: http://s21.postimg.org/3nvdz80vb/are_03.jpg

3D: http://s15.postimg.org/4lk04gwwb/are_06.jpg

point cloud: http://s23.postimg.org/4mrgn0daz/are_05.jpg

3D top: http://s30.postimg.org/6jfoha3fl/are_08.jpg

3D side: http://s30.postimg.org/3n6fm81r5/are_10.jpg

(based on Flying over Arecibo photos, see above)

a close-up 3D model: http://s2.postimg.org/4rblqbnwp/are_12.jpg

related point cloud: http://s2.postimg.org/pqdgt84i1/are_11.jpg

..based on 500 public photos, taken between 2000-2014 by tourists - sadly that means the receiver moved around. So if you can capture hundreds of photos please go and upload the photos on flickr.com

3rd33• 12 years ago

I cannot understand why these kind of projects lack funding. Is there no super rich person on this planet who is obsessed with the thought of extraterrestrial life?

frik4• 12 years ago

Paul Allen (Microsoft co-founder) is interested in SETI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Telescope_Array

  Overall Paul Allen has contributed more than $30 million to the project.

He may not know yet that Arecibo Observatory needs help though :/

Triva: he is also looking for a wife http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IM0SvIiMI4

melling2• 12 years ago

I cannot understand why people keep turning to the super rich to solve problems.

There are 7 billion people on the planet. Isn't it time that the 1 billion of us who appear super rich to the other 6 billion, do little more?

omegaworks• 12 years ago

As the National Science Foundation (NSF), which owns Arecibo Observatory, cannot legally carry insurance on its facilities, there is no clear source of funding to carry out such a massive repair.

This seems so absurd. Why cant NSF facilities be insured?

lutorm• 12 years ago

AFAIK, doesn't the entire federal government self-insure?

mturmon• 12 years ago

The NSF has supported Arecibo for decades now, along with a bunch of other observatories (http://www.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses/astro201/nato...). NSF has re-evaluated its commitment to these observatories and decided to pull out of several of them so they can pursue new observing opportunities, such as LSST (sky survey for transients) and ATST (solar telescope).

Some scientists are unhappy. The complaints I have heard are that these less-centralized telescopes allowed small investigations to get off the ground, and the new ones are large consortia.

For more: http://news.sciencemag.org/2012/08/major-u.s.-telescopes-fac...

peter_l_downs• 12 years ago

The LSST is an incredible project. I toured their lab at Brookhaven and one of the lead scientists offhand commented "Yeah, the only problem so far is we're going to have to make something flatter than anyone has ever really made something flat" (referring to the CCD array).

lifeisstillgood2• 12 years ago

cool - it just has to Anti-matter weapons taking out planetary hubs with Minds directing the defences ... :-)

Udo• 12 years ago

The events are too short and too powerful for even Star Trek-like weapons :)

It's clear from the article that the amount of energy required for these bursts would be far in excess of what could be considered practical - even for planet-scope warfare. There is no characteristic gamma pulse which would be expected from an antimatter annihilation, and the pulse length is not exactly what we would expect from this type of weapon either.

girvo• 12 years ago

But certainly not too short and powerful for the Culture! ;)

lifeisstillgood2• 12 years ago

ok ok ok - stop with the downvotes, it was a silly joke.

But, as Udo kindly did, if we took it seriously, what would a civilisation have to do for us to detect its (warlike) actions and if we did, more importantly, would we believe it?

steeve• 12 years ago

Call me (and Dr Arroway of course) when it starts generating prime numbers.

Houshalter3• 12 years ago

Would aliens have any interest in prime numbers, like Earth mathematicians do?

josai3• 12 years ago

Interesting question. Reducing it further, is the concept of mathematics, as we understand it, required to develop high technology?

I would have thought the answer to be yes.

electromagnetic2• 12 years ago

That's an interesting question, which simply answered is a plain yes or no.

If they use technology as we understand it, then presumably yes. Prime numbers are just a unique artifact of basic arithmetic. Our knowledge of prime numbers appears to date back to at least Ancient Egyptian times, so it's quite safe to assume an alien race capable of something as technologically adept as transmitting a signal with the purposeful intent of contacting another race would know what prime numbers are.

The issue is we're limited to our view point, we're exceptionally naive of anything different as we've never experienced it. So, is our technology the only way?

We're designing nanotechnology that could fabricate anything we could dream of, but what if an alien race ended up evolving a unique cell that could do it too. We have white blood cells, they have nanofab cells. Would they even comprehend math if they're just growing jet engines and rocket nozzles?

It's this latter, our unknowable unknowns that will broadside us. How do we relate to something that's unfathomably alien to us.

The good news is you and I likely won't be around to care when we find out what aliens are really like.

a1a2• 12 years ago

Possibly. We should keep in mind that our knowledge of number theory is very limited. They are probably not really interested because it's all really obvious to them -- and has been for quite a while. It's quite amusing to think about how they might laugh at our encryption systems relying on simple discrete logarithm-problems etc. Not unlike we laugh at Julius Ceasar for relying on simple substitution.

billforsternz• 12 years ago

Yes. Prime numbers are fundamental features of the universe. Fundamental things that are global rather than local; Mathematics, the periodic table, physical constants, physics, chemistry, no doubt others that don't occur to me instantaneously. Things that might be local only include biology ....

graycat2• 12 years ago

Ha! Of COURSE they do! Didn't you know? We got OUR interests in prime numbers from aliens, and they are still interested, e.g., still trying to find an algorithm to factor integers that runs in O(n) for an integer of n decimal digits. Why decimal? I know the answer, but there is no room in this post for me to write it down!

And for 'The Book', Paul Erdős, that was from aliens, too. Why? Sure, could there be any doubt, Erdős was one of them!

:-)!

pavel_lishin2• 12 years ago

I imagine they would at least recognize that it's a handy tool for communicating intelligence. "This signal is not an accident. Pay attention to this signal."

gosub• 12 years ago

Are there natural (as in non-human) phenomenona that produce the sequence of prime numbers?

cmsmith• 12 years ago

Certain species of cicadas have evolved a life cycle which is a prime number of years long (I know of 13 and 17 years). This prevents predators from synchronizing their life cycle to that of the cicadas.

ZenPro4• 12 years ago

Great link. Can someone with a bit more expertise elaborate on this part -

Normally, radio waves travel at the speed of light. This means that all the different wavelengths and frequencies of radio waves emitted by the same object – say, a pulsar – should arrive on Earth in one big batch.

As someone not particularly well-schooled in physics; I envisage quite simply that if I turn on a radio then off again then on again - the two transmissions arrive separately at another source.

Is that not the same for extra/intergalactic transmissions? If an external transmitter broadcast continual signals would earth not receive them with time delays between each one?

HN must have a science grad that can explain why I am mistaken.

noselasd• 12 years ago

The text you quote says is that if you turn your radio transmitter on, and broadcast on a lot of different frequencies, and turn your radio off - all the different frequencies arrive simultaneously too(since you transmitted them simultaneously). It will of course arrive some time after you transmit it, since the signal travels at the speed of light.

tldr; It's just saying that a low frequency signal travels just as fast as a high frequency signal.

hythloday• 12 years ago

Sure - but if you bounce a radio signal off a wall to the side, then turn it off and on to send a signal straight at an observer, the time difference to the observer is not the same as the one to the transmitter.

Steuard4• 12 years ago

The phrasing of that section isn't entirely clear, but I think the idea is a little simpler than what you're imagining.

What the article means is that if you have a single, very short emission of waves with a combination of multiple frequencies, then in principle an observer ought to observe all of the emitted waves arrive at the same time, regardless of frequency. (Traveling the same distance at the same velocity should mean arrival at the same time, after all.)

In this case, though, they see the radio-frequency equivalent of a short blue flash first and later a short green flash and then a short red flash (and presumably all gradations in between, all blurred into one event of gradually decreasing frequency). The notion (as I understand it: not my specialty) is that the longer wavelengths get slowed down a bit more as they pass through galactic and/or intergalactic dust, so their speed is lower.

Now, what you're probably wondering is, "Why do they think it's a single short event that's gotten 'smeared out' during travel rather than a longer event that continuously changed wavelengths as it happened at the source?" I don't know the answer for sure, but astronomers have a lot of practice in recognizing these things. One possibility is pulse shape: if the pattern of brightening and dimming of the "blue" light looks exactly the same as the patterns for the "green" and "red" light, it's more likely that it came from a single source event rather than a continuous process.

TimSAstro• 12 years ago

Steuard is right, and astronomers have good reasons to expect this behaviour - wave dispersion. The best link I can find from a quick google is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispersion_(water_waves) -which refers specifically to dispersion of water (typically, ocean) waves, but the concepts are the same. (Edited to add) We expect dispersion effects in the case of fast radio bursts due to effects of propagation through the interstellar medium. Not my area of expertise, but see http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8316 if you want a properly referenced starting point.

ZenPro4• 12 years ago

That makes sense. Mucho appreciado :-)

maaku2• 12 years ago

Dead on, good job.

deciplex2• 12 years ago

They don't get 'slowed down' more, they get deflected more. So, the redder light that does reach us had to travel further to get here.

coldcode• 12 years ago

Shows you that the amount of what we know about the universe is likely less than what we don't. I've always thought that mind boggling discoveries that change our understanding of the universe is the only constant in it.

frik4• 12 years ago

Arecibo Observatory was used as a filming location in the climax of the James Bond movie GoldenEye (1995):

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

curiousDog• 12 years ago

Not to mention but also my ATF movie, Contact

serf• 12 years ago

related, it also appears all over Sagan's Cosmos.

nether• 12 years ago

chippy• 12 years ago

We are detecting something from a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

kator• 12 years ago

The death star explosion?

jotm• 12 years ago

I think Alderaan's explosion generated more energy :-)

JetSpiegel• 12 years ago

Nope, Samantha was abducted in Martha's Vineyard.

shutupalready• 12 years ago

Is this discovery and the Oh-My-God particle related?

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle )

graycat2• 12 years ago

With the estimate that the distance to the source is 3 billion light years, what would the energy at the source have been? How much energy are we talking?

How much red shift are we talking? So, at the source, at what frequencies was most of the energy from?

What happened to the other frequencies, lower, higher, or much higher? We do believe that gamma rays can travel 3 billion light years without being absorbed or deflected, right?

Let's see a sky map of the estimated locations of the dozen or so signals so far?

Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio Burst

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