Extremely magnetic, ultra-dense stars
It s taken nearly 15 years to begin untangling the mystery of fast radio bursts. Initial hypotheses included evaporating black holes, flaring dead stars, colliding dense objects, and yes, even alien technologies (spoiler: it s not aliens). Further clues, from nano-scale structures within the radio bursts to their millisecond duration and intensity, suggested they must be produced by extremely dense, compact objects.
So, scientists turned to objects such as black holes and neutron stars, which are left over when massive stars blow themselves to bits in supernovae. Later, observations suggested that some bursts are born in regions with extreme magnetic fields, further suggesting these mysterious signals could come from magnetars.
Mysterious radio burst from space is unusually close and especially baffling
A fast radio burst, one of the most perplexing phenomena seen by astronomers, has been detected among a nearby population of ancient stars.
ByNadia Drake
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Bright, fleeting blasts of radio waves coming from the vicinity of a nearby galaxy are deepening one of astronomy’s biggest mysteries. The repeating bursts of energy seem to be coming from an ancient group of stars called a globular cluster, which is among the last places astronomers expected to find them.
Often originating billions of light-years away, the extremely bright, extremely brief bursts of radio waves known as fast radio bursts, or FRBs, have defied explanation since they were first spotted in 2007. Based on observations to date, scientists surmised that the bursts are powered by young, short-lived cosmic objects called magnetars.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Voyager 1 probe has picked up a strange "hum" coming from outside our solar system. Launched back in 1977, Voyager 1 is [.]
May 13, 2021
NASA’s Voyager 1 also detects a faint monotone hum beyond our solar system by Jake Pearson
This artist’s illustration of what Voyager 1 looked like when Interstellar entered space. NASA / JPL-Caltech
Said NASA’s Voyager 1, the longest spacecraft on Earth Farewell to the Solar System About a decade ago, an interstellar spacecraft passed through an invisible door 11 billion miles from Earth. After that, it travels another 3 billion miles, still sending home data, which allows scientists to search for space between stars. In a paper Published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy, The researchers examined the information that Voyager 1’s plasma wave system found during its voyage, but especially after it crossed the boundary of the Solar System.