A telescope in Canada has picked up radio signals from a distant galaxy that have traveled around 1.5 billion light years.
Technology is developing and improving all the time and with that, our discoveries about what lies beyond our own planet Earth are coming thick and fast. Not just discoveries about nearby entities like the moon and Mars, but beyond that too. Just recently, the second ever human-made object left the solar system and ventured bravely off into interstellar space.
The further we venture away from Earth, the closer we come to discovering whether we are indeed alone in the universe. At least that’s what you would assume. Considering the sheer size of the universe, however, we might have to travel pretty far to find anyone or anything if there, in fact, is something else out there. However, what if that something else makes contact with us first?
Some experts believe that might have just happened. That’s because a radio telescope at the CHIME observatory in Canada has just picked up a strnage radio signal. The signal is a repeating one from a source located an astounding 1.5 billion light years away, reports BBC. 13 fast radio bursts, or FRBs, were recorded in total, but the one that has caught astronomers’ attention is the repeating one.
It is only the second time in history that a repeating signal such as this has been picked up by a telescope. There are a few theories as to what may have caused it. Some experts believe that the signals were caused by “a neutron star with a very strong magnetic field that is spinning very rapidly.” Others have posited that the FRBs may well have been triggered by two neutron stars merging together.
The third and least supported theory right now, at least by experts in the field, is that the radio signals were sent by alien life. While there are other, perhaps more logical, explanations as to where the FRBs may have come from, it is certainly an interesting theory. When the layman hears that radio signals have been sent from deep space, that’s the first place most of our minds go. If that is what happened, we are going to need to travel a long way if we want to meet them.
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