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Tile 107 – nicknamed the Outlier – is part of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), a radiotelescope located in an extremely sparsely populated, flat, semi-arid terrain in Western Australia. The MWA, and another nearby telescope, were used to study fast radio bursts. Image via Pete Wheeler / ICRAR.
Here's a cool story we almost missed. The International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) described on October 29, 2018, the way in which two Australian radio telescopes were synchronized, in order to study the mysterious fast radio bursts. These millisecond-scale bursts have been perplexed astronomers ever since the first burst were discovered in 2007. They're exceptionally bright, and they're known to come from deep space. Dozens of them, but no one knows what causes them. The two telescopes – located side-by-side in the desert of Western Australia's remote Murchison region – have now shed some light on the mystery, in a new paper published in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The telescopes are the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) and the Australian Kilometer Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), and they have been synchronized to observe the same patch of sky, searching that area for fast radio bursts.
And indeed, in the published research, astronomers described how ASKAP did detect several extremely bright fast radio bursts, while the MWA – which scans the sky at lower radio frequencies – did not see anything, even though it was pointed to the same area of sky at the same time.
Artist's concept of the second synchronized telescope, called the radiotelescope ASKAP, detecting a fast radio burst. Scientists do not know what causes FRBs, but it must involve incredible energy – equivalent to the amount released by the sun in 80 years. Image via OzGrav, Swinburne University of Technology / ICRAR.
Marcin Sokolowski of Curtin University, Lead author of the new work. He said the fact that the fast radio bursts were not observed at lower frequencies by the MWA was highly significant:
When ASKAP sees these extremely bright events and the MWA does not, that tells us something unexpectedly is going on; Fast radio sources do not emit at low frequencies, or the signals are blocked on their way to Earth.
Study co-author Ramesh Bhat, also of Curtin University, said it was not easy to get the telescopes pointed at the same area of the sky at the same time. He said:
Fast radio bursts are unpredictable, so to catch them when both telescopes are looking in the same direction is not easy. It took many months of ASKAP and the MWA co-tracking the same area of sky, ensuring the best possible overlap of their views, to give us the chance to catch some of these enigmatic bursts.
The challenge was in making it all happen automatically, but it really paid off.
Artist's concept of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). Image via OzGrav, Swinburne University of Technology / ICRAR.
A third co-author, Jean-Pierre Macquart of Curtin University, said:
It's really thrilling to have a clue about the origins of these incredible bursts of energy from outside our galaxy. The MWA adds an important piece of the puzzle and it was only possible with this 'tango' between the two telescopes.
It's an exciting development because it's one of the two teams and it's one of the best of the two telescopes at the site.
Future coordination between the teams will also provide additional areas of astronomy, as well as a better understanding of the situation.
Bottom line: Two telescopes in Australia were used to search the same patch of sky for fast radio bursts. One telescope saw them; the other did not, despite the fact that both were looking at the same place at the same time. This result sets some parameters on what might be the bursts and so sheds light on the mystery.
Source: No low-frequency emission from extremely bright Fast Radio Bursts
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Via ICRAR
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