Mysterious radio waves emitted from nearby galaxy

New Scientist ^ | April 14th, 2010

[TaraP]

There is something strange in the cosmic neighbourhood. An unknown object in the nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.

"We don't know what it is," says co-discoverer Tom Muxlow of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics near Macclesfield, UK.

The thing appeared in May last year, while Muxlow and his colleagues were monitoring an unrelated stellar explosion in M82 using the MERLIN network of radio telescopes in the UK. A bright spot of radio emission emerged over only a few days, quite rapidly in astronomical terms. Since then it has done very little except baffle astrophysicists.

It certainly does not fit the pattern of radio emissions from supernovae: they usually get brighter over a few weeks and then fade away over months, with the spectrum of the radiation changing all the while. The new source has hardly changed in brightness over the course of a year, and its spectrum is steady.

[Titus-Maximus]

Hey Ken, what’s the frequency?

[TaraP]

LOL....The head Cookmaster!

[screaming eagle2]

who killed j.r.?

[WinOne4TheGipper]

There Rush goes, adding more affiliates.:)

[a fool in paradise]

Some nice interplanetary music, I tell you!

[a fool in paradise]

Eh, I don’t want to hear martian music. I finally saw Close Encounters. The whole movie ends with an early disco rave in the desert.

[Parley Baer]

Hmmm, the source of Rove’s earthquake machine. Sure been active this year.

[TaraP]

Every Black Hole Contains Another Universe? And our universe may sit in another universe's black hole, equations predict.

[jeffc]

Re-runs of Giligan's Island.

"Those poor, poor people . . . "

[PeaceBeWithYou]

[colorado tanker]

Rumor is they come back to rave each year.

[Lakeshark]

"We endorse Ron Paul, he is one of us."

:-)

[Sherman Logan]

An unknown object in the nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.

Actually, it began doing this at least 12M years ago. We're just getting the news.

[HGSW0904]

Ah, yes, the ‘historical documents’.

[onyx]

ROTFLMAO!

Put down the ____.

[PA Engineer]

Better get a copy of Indian Love Call.

[Bullish]

It’s massive, it’s emitting signals, it’s moving fast....

Barack Obama’s ego?

[Sefton]

Obama had asked his birth hospital to fax his long form birth certificate.

[Captain Beyond]

bflr

[Tallguy]

NASA is trying to figure out how this figures into their “Green” mandate.