Fast Radio Bursts

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TheGreenGoblin
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Fast Radio Bursts

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri May 21, 2021 5:19 am

FRB's have been in the popular press this week, as even the so-called serious press has been inclined to ludicrous hyperbole about the the strength of these sources, and inaccuracy in their reports on the news that one such source may have been found in our very own Milky Way galaxy.

Canada's CHIME telescope, Australia's Parkes radio telescope and the NASA Hubble Telescope (amongst others) have been used to try and locate the most recently detected FRB in the last six months. The actual source of these extremely powerful bursts is not known but theories range from hypernovae, to neutron star explosions, to magnetars, and now one source may have been noted in our locality.
In radio astronomy, a fast radio burst (FRB) is a transient radio pulse of length ranging from a fraction of a millisecond to a few milliseconds, caused by some high-energy astrophysical process not yet understood. Astronomers estimate the average FRB releases as much energy in a millisecond as the sun puts out in 3 days. While extremely energetic at their source, the strength of the signal reaching Earth has been described as 1,000 times less than from a mobile phone on the Moon. The first FRB was discovered by Duncan Lorimer and his student David Narkevic in 2007 when they were looking through archival pulsar survey data, and it is therefore commonly referred to as the Lorimer Burst.Many FRBs have since been recorded, including several that have been detected to repeat in seemingly irregular ways. Nonetheless, one FRB has been detected to repeat in a regular way: particularly, FRB 180916 seems to pulse every 16.35 days. Most FRBs are extragalactic, but the first Milky Way FRB was detected by the CHIME radio telescope in April 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_radio_burst

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Re: Fast Radio Bursts

#2 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri May 21, 2021 5:31 am

Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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TheGreenGoblin
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Re: Fast Radio Bursts

#3 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri May 21, 2021 5:45 am

For an entertaining history of this branch of research you can't beat the UK's very own Curious Droid.

Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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