China's five hundred meter aperture spherical radio telescope (FAST) has recorded some strange signals coming from a faraway galaxy (3 billion light-years from Earth). The cosmic source from which these signals are coming is identified as Fast radio burst (FRB) and the source is named FRB 20201124A.
This is in fact the second time that such repeated signals have been received after its discovery in 2019. FRBs are intense but brief flashes of radio frequency emissions. They last just a few milliseconds, and so detection of these signals requires high-end instruments and proper knowledge.
Chinese astronomers who have studied these signals say that the signals are coming from a magnetar or neutron star residing in that galaxy, having an extremely high magnetic field. The scientists continuously monitored these signals coming from the same direction for 91 hours. Out of these 91 hours, 1863 signals have been received for 82 hours.
Magnetar
Scientists from China and America are now collaborating in studying these strange signals and trying to derive meaning from them. They say that radio signals of different wavelengths have been received from time to time coming from this same direction. Moreover, the object is said to emit smaller and weaker radio bursts between the fast radio bursts. Observations from FAST, Guizhou, China have been localized by the US National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA).
Signals
They speculate that there is a hidden code in these signals and probably some alien species is trying to communicate with us via these signals. The trouble is however the decryption of this code and understanding the message hidden in it (if at all there is any).
Fast radio bursts are not new to us, in fact, they have been discovered 15 years ago. These radio bursts are associated with the energy release equal to millions of suns. Generally, most FRBs explode once and the corresponding radio signals are received once during a particular time. But there have been exceptions to this. Many FRBs have been found to emit signals continuously over a period of time which is quite baffling indeed. In 2020 a fast radio burst was discovered inside its galaxy, which is again a very rare and strange incident.
Since then the study of FRB has gained interest and scientists have continuously monitored FRB 20201124A. It has been found that the source is not only sending the signals but also polarizing them simultaneously. More polarization would mean stronger magnetic fields of the source.
Carefully studying these signals would help us to know more about the atmosphere of the source magnetar. The study has been published in the prestigious journal Nature. These signals are continuously reaching us for the past few years, but we are yet to derive any meaning from them. If we finally do succeed in doing that, probably it will be a new dawn in the scientific prowess of humans.
By
Prabir Rudra
