Astronomers going through scans from the Parkes radio telescope in Australia have spotted a mysterious 5 millisecond burst of powerful radio waves. The signal is thought to have originated 3 billion light years away.
Scientists are unsure what the signal is but have effectively discounted the possibility of it being a broadcast from an extraterrestrial civilisation because of the sheer power of the transmission.
"We think it has got to be some sort of catastrophic event happening in another galaxy - like two stars colliding and merging or maybe a black hole. Something kind of exotic," said Maura McLaughlin from West Virginia University.
.... i have no idea the fundamentals behind it, but another source said it was the 'death throes' of a black hole. i assume this means as a black hole craps out, it releases everything that was inside it?
Usually from a large accretion disk. matter spirals in from outside the black hole and gets compressed and heated on its way in, giving off powerful gamma rays and x-rays.
I doubt that is the cause though, as that would give of a sustained burst of radio waves. My bet is a pair of neutron stars colliding.
Seems like something to do with neutron stars, they have been known to give off radio waves if they become pulsars. So possibly a neutron hitting a black hole?
can they effectivly rule out that it's from extraterrestrials when they don't know exactly what it originated from in the first place?
I'm not saying it's from extraterrestrials or anything, but it seems to me that science should keep an open mind (or it ceases to be science). Just because it's a more powerful burst than what we can imagine an extraterrestrial producing doesn't rule out that possibility at all. Not one bit.
As Thoreau said: "The universe is wider than our views of it."
"but it seems to me that science should keep an open mind (or it ceases to be science). "
There is a difference between keeping an open mind and giving equal weight to the unlikely.
An extraterrestrail transmission is a pretty extrodanairy claim in and of itself. An ET transmission originating from 3 billions light years away at a magnitude that is detectable from here is beyond extrodanairy.
There would have to be some matching "beyond extraordinary" evidence before you could make a plausable hypothesis based on alines.
I believe we're probably saying the same thing in different ways.
I'll try to clear up what I was saying a bit: We know that they don't know what this radio burst is, so they definitely don't know what it isn't. Of course we know that 'the unlikely' in this case would be an educated guess on current available data.
Another example of 'the unlikely': Several hundred years ago it was unlikely that the earth wasn't the center of the universe. From all available data, it likely was the center of the universe.
The current hypothesis of the time always seems plausible, of course, until the new, hard data is attained. They found from further observation that in fact the earth was not the center of the universe...the sun was (lol).
Until we figure out what this burst is, they cannot effectively rule out anything. For all we know this is evidence of an extraterrestrial technology, we just don't know.
They say: "It's much too bright. There is no way any civilization that we could possibly think of could create a thing so incredibly powerful."
They seem to try to discount an extraterrestrial civilization causing it, but they have no idea what an extraterrestrial civilization would be capable of. They're just offering their opinion of an extraterrestrial civilization's capabilities. Last time I checked, opinion isn't science, it's dogma.
..that they made it a point to say the source wasn't likely and ET intelligence becasue when you say "radio" signal to the masses they immedietly conjure a transmission spanning the radio frequences we use here to communicate with where in reality the radio band of the electromagnetic spectrum is any radiation below the wavelength of visible light.
Then there's the fact that the radio burst was not coherent nor modulated. As far as communications go it would be the equivaent of static.
It's *possible* that the burst was ET in origin, but given the data it's not plausible, so there's no real point in considering it until some future data or reanalysis refutes such a finding.
"Several hundred years ago it was unlikely that the earth wasn't the center of the universe. From all available data, it likely was the center of the universe."
That sort of depends on which culture you are talking about. And what point in their histories. I would also suggest there is a difference between ignoring inconvienent findings or lacking sufficent imagination (as any modler of an earth-centric system had to do) and lacking enough data to make a reasoned hypothesis.
"They seem to try to discount an extraterrestrial civilization causing it, but they have no idea what an extraterrestrial civilization would be capable of. They're just offering their opinion of an extraterrestrial civilization's capabilities. Last time I checked, opinion isn't science, it's dogma."
You seem to think that such an outcome should be given equal consideration as to invstigations into what sort of stellar phenomina caused such a burst. Might I ask why you would seek to frivilously spend such time, effort, and funds?
Yeah, IMO it might be a bit foolish to assume that some advanced intelligence would use radio signals to communicate. Light is much faster.
A fundamentalist Christian might say that it is frivolous and costly to do further study into evolution because they already know that God created everything. IMO that is a large reason, in the name of science, that we should give all things equal consideration.
You’re kidding right? You do know that radio waves travel at the speed of light? (They are both electromagnetic radiation, just at different frequencies.)
