Mysterious radio burst from space is back, as expected

In June of this year, astronomers have found a rapid radio burst (FRB), FRB 121102, repeating itself on a regular basis, somewhere in deep space. This was only the second time that a radio burst with a discernible repeating pattern had been discovered. The first one was discovered in February of this year.

FRBs are transient radio pulses that vary in duration from a fraction of a millisecond to a few milliseconds. We still don’t know why they exist or what they are. The source of this particular FRB is a dwarf galaxy over 3 billion light years away.

In June, a study, published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, theorized FRB 121102 repeated every 157 days based on data accumulated over a five-year period. The team predicted they would pick up another signal in July or August of this year.

And they did it: just at the right time, FRB 121102 started up.

A new pre-print study confirmed that FRB 121102 restarted, and this study confirmed a similar periodicity: 161 ± 5 days. The new data confirms earlier theories that FRB 121102 is sending a repeated radio burst; second, it allows scientists to predict and study its activity more effectively, potentially learning more about its origins.

Could it be aliens? Probably not.

“I think in all likelihood we will find a natural explanation for these events, but I like to keep an open mind and follow wherever the evidence takes me,” said Adam Deller, astrophysicist at Swinburne University of Technology. .

Kaustubh Rajwade of the University of Manchester, who conducted research in the first study that identified repetitive FRB, believes it could be a neutron star.

“Based on the short durations and high luminosities of the bursts themselves, a good estimate would be a neutron star with a very high magnetic field that orbits a companion object,” he said.