Space & Astronomy

Mystery radio burst picked up by observatory

By T.K. Randall
April 26, 2014

Image: Milky Way Galaxy Seen From Amphu Laptsa Base Camp
Credit: Pravin Mishra / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) Only a small handful of such bursts have ever been detected and up until recently all of them had been picked up by a telescope in Australia, leading some astronomers to question whether they may even be coming from deep space at all.

Now that the same mysterious burst of radio signals has also been picked up by the Arecibo observatory however the phenomenon has been the subject of renewed interest with scientists redoubling their efforts to determine where the bursts could be coming from.Each burst recorded to date has lasted only a few thousandths of a second and seems to originate from an extremely distant part of the universe. Numerous theories have been put forward but nobody has been able to satisfactorily determine what could be producing them.

"The sources of the bursts are undoubtedly exotic by normal standards," wrote Cornell University astronomer Jim Cordes.

Source: National Geographic

Tags: Arecibo, Radio Burst