Epic cosmic radio burst finally seen in real time

www.newscientist.com ^ | 08:00 19 January 2015 | by Michael Slezak

[Red Badger]

A gigantic but fleeting burst of radio waves has been caught in the act for the first time, helping to narrow down the vast array of things that might cause them. Figuring out what these fast radio bursts are or where they come from could help answer some of the biggest cosmological questions.

They last about a millisecond but give off as much energy as the sun does in a day, all seemingly in a tight band of radio-frequency waves.

Their source is a mystery, but whatever causes them must be huge, cataclysmic and up to 5.5 billion light years away, says Emily Petroff of Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia.

A top contender is the collapse of an oversized neutron star that should have given way to a black hole long ago, but was spinning so fast that relativity made it seem lighter. But other possibilities include a flare from a magnetar, a type of neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field.

A total of nine fast radio bursts have been reported since the first was discovered in 2007, but all of them were found weeks or years after the actual event by sifting through old data.

[SNIP]

Corrections, 20 January 2014: When this article was first published, it referred to fast radio bursts as "blitzars", but blitzars are just one possible account of what FRBs might be. And the figure we initially gave for the amount of energy that the blasts give off in a millisecond was significantly overblown. Both things have now been corrected.

[Red Badger]

Could the blasts be from neutron stars? (Image: Mark Garlick/SPL/Getty)

Blitzars?..............

[Red Badger]

SPACE PING!..........................

[TexasCajun]

They last about a millisecond but give off as much energy as the sun does in a day, all seemingly in a tight band of radio-frequency wave

Good thing we were not the target.

[OneWingedShark]

[Da Coyote]

Heh, that guy competes with the Obamadork for the “Multiverse’s most idiotic individual”.

It’s a close race.

Keep tuned.

[a fool in paradise]

Their source is a mystery, but whatever causes them must be huge, cataclysmic and up to 5.5 billion light years away, says Emily Petroff of Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia. A top contender is the collapse of an oversized neutron star that should have given way to a black hole long ago, but was spinning so fast that relativity made it seem lighter. But other possibilities include a flare from a magnetar, a type of neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field.

It's the black box beacon signal from Malaysian Flight 370

[Scrambler Bob]

Get prayed up.

Don’t stand near any mooslims.

[GeronL]

lol

Is CNN still looking?

[Red Badger]

[faithhopecharity]

Instructions from his home planet’s galactic invasion control center— being beamed directly into TOTUS.

[Red Badger]

In the science fiction novel written by Carl Sagan and published in 1985, ‘Contact’ , not the horrid stupid movie they made from it, the pulsars and other such phenomena are claimed by the aliens as there ‘work’ in progress to keep the universe from collapsing in on itself or going on and dissipating into cold dark nothingness, and we should ignore them for the time being.....................

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Red Badger.

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[Kenny Bunk]

Maybe baby, it’s Buddy Holly tunes on the mom-back circuit.

[katana]

Caught in the act? Seen by us tiny apes now but happened five and half billion years ago? Methinks the statute of limitations has run out.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

[Craftmore]

It was a massive disturbance in the force,as if a billion souls all screamed at the same time and then disappeared.

[SpinnerWebb]

no... just a slight headache.

[Organic Panic]

[mikrofon]

other possibilities include a flare from a magnetar,
a type of neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field

Some radio stars with magnetic personalities flare up for a time before burning out…

[Red Badger]

Some just collapse under their own weight....................