Researchers Detect Flashes Of Light In Deep Space

CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope has detected brief flashes of radio emission from the distant Universe. Their origin is unknown.

AsianScientist (Jul. 9, 2013) – A radio telescope in eastern Australia has detected mysterious ‘flashes’ of radio energy from the distant Universe that may open up a whole new area of astrophysics.

The surprising finding, made by scientists from ten institutions in Australia, the US, the UK, Germany and Italy using CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope, is published in the journal Science.

“Staggeringly, we estimate there could be one of these flashes going off every ten seconds somewhere in the sky,” said research team member Dr Simon Johnston, Head of Astrophysics at CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science.

Four flashes were detected, each from a different direction and each lasting for only a millisecond (a thousandth of a second).

The characteristics of the radio signal — how it is ‘smeared out’ in frequency from travelling through space — indicate that the flashes came from up to 11 billion light-years away.

No gamma rays or X-rays were detected in association with the flashes, and the astronomers have ruled out the flashes being from phenomena such as gamma-ray bursts, the merger of two neutron stars, merging black holes, or evaporating black holes.

“A single burst of radio emission of unknown origin was detected outside our galaxy about six years ago but no one was certain what it was or even if it was real,” said lead author Dan Thornton, a PhD student with the University of Manchester and CSIRO. “So we have spent the last four years searching for more of these explosive, short-duration radio bursts.”

That original radio flash, known as the ‘Lorimer burst’ after its discoverer, was also found with CSIRO’s Parkes telescope.

“Finding these things requires both a sensitive telescope and spending enough time looking, and that’s what we’ve done with Parkes,” said Dr Johnston.

The article can be found at: Thornton D et al. (2013) A Population of Fast Radio Bursts at Cosmological Distances.

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Source: CSIRO.
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