Fast radio burst: short, sharp flash of #Radio Waves from #Unknown Source in the Universe, caught as it was happening Over past few years, astronomers have observed this milliseconds phenomenon: 1st seen 2007 by Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia and 6 more such bursts in the Parkes telescopes data and a 7th burst was found in the data from the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico. The Parkes system captured #polarisation of the light. ie direction in which electromagnetic waves oscillate and they can be linearly or circularly polarised. The signal from the radio wave burst was more than 20% #circularly polarised and suggests there is a #magnetic field in the vicinity. The theories are now that the radio wave burst might be linked to a very compact type of object -- such as #neutron #stars or #black #holes and the bursts could be connected to collisions or star quakes. Now we know more about what we should be looking for, says Daniele Malesani. We found out what it #wasnt. The burst could have hurled out as much energy in a few milliseconds as the Sun does in an entire day. But the fact that we did not see light in other wavelengths eliminates a number of astronomical phenomena that are associated with violent events such as #gamma-ray bursts from exploding stars and supernovae, which were otherwise candidates for the burst, nbi.ku.dk/english/news/news15/snapshot-of-cosmic-burst-of-radio-waves/
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 15:53:52 +0000
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