Much of the universe is still a mystery. Even with the advances of modern science and technology, there is still much about the universe that has not been fully explained. One of them is radio waves coming from space. These bright radio bursts are still a mystery and could be aliens contacting us.
Fast radio bursts (FRB) are radio waves coming from outside our solar system. Scientists do not know as of yet what is causing these radio bursts. Several possibilities have been forwarded. Some say that these might be some sort of flares coming from stars. Others see them to be the result of collisions in neutron stars. Still others say it might be alien life forms trying to contact us.
Two astronomers are looking into one of these fast radio outbursts. The team of Vikram Ravi and Ryan Shannon are looking into FRB 150807 for possible answers to the mystery. By studying FRBs they hope to understand more what lies in the area that is mostly empty space, as Ravi, who is a Caltech postdoctoral scholar, said.
FRBs travel through space, and as they travel they become distorted whenever they pass intergalactic material, according to Science Daily. The team hopes to learn more about what is in those areas that the FRB travels through in order to understand more about the universe. In the case of FRB 150807, it is distorted only by the material in its host galaxy but not by the other areas that it passes through.
FRB 150807 has been observed through another mysterious object, which is a pulsar. FRB 150807 though is much farther than the pulsar, though their magnetic fields come from the same direction. So far only 18 FRBs have been reported, and most of them have not been repeated ever since they were discovered.
This is one reason why FRBs are hard to study. They only have short durations of burst, as Phys Org reports. FRB 150807 has been detected because of its radio brightness. This has helped detect where it came from, which is a galaxy billions of light years away.
Knowing more about FRBs would depend in part to how many of them could be detected. With only a few discovered, bright radio bursts are still a mystery and could still be aliens trying to contact us. Astronomers are still trying to learn the true nature of FRBs and what's causing it. Also seen is a distant star that could possibly the roundest natural object.
