There is a new fast radio burst that beats at regular intervals.
The longest-lived FRB ever found has a clear periodic pattern and can be heard for up to three seconds. It is 1000 times longer than other signals.
Astronomers have been stumped since the first one was found. The mysterious flashes release a lot of energy for a short time.
We're getting closer to understanding what they are and where they came from, but discoveries like this one are only leading to more questions.
The light-years away from us were the source of FRB 2019.1221 A. The signal was very long, lasting about three seconds, and featured periodic peaks that were remarkably precise, according to Daniele Michilli, an astronomer at MIT.
He said it was the first time the signal was periodic.
Astronomers still don't know the source of the signal, but they think it might have come from a collapsed star.
There aren't many things in the universe that send periodic signals. He said that radio pulsars and magnetars produce a beamed emission similar to a lighthouse. The signal could be a magnetar or a pulsar.
The new signal is a million times brighter than the previous ones.
"From the properties of this new signal, we can say that there is a cloud of plasma that must be very turbulent," Michilli said.
The researcher and his colleagues are trying to measure the rate of expansion of the universe using the regular beats of FRB 2019.1221A.
"This detection raises the question of what could cause this extreme signal that we haven't seen before, and how can we use this signal to study the universe," Michilli said.
Astronomers have detected billions of light-years from Earth.
Scientists say that planets scream as they are ripped apart.
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