Capturing strange radio signals from extraterrestrials: Like the beating of a human heart

According to Science Alert, this "cosmic heartbeat" is much faster than a human heart, but the "heartbeat" pattern is identical and very regular.

Astrophysicist Daniele Michilli from the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space (MIT), one of the lead authors of the study, said it was a radio burst. The line (FBR) lasts about 3 seconds, has amazingly precise cyclic peaks, emitting "boom, boom, boom" every 0.2 seconds.

CHIME, one of the most powerful radio telescope systems in the world

The peculiar signal was picked up by CHIME's powerful detector in December 2019, which greatly confused scientists and research efforts so far.

The signal, named FRB 20191221A, is unclear how far it traveled, but scientists believe it must have come from another galaxy. The most interesting mystery they pursued was the object that emitted it.

"There aren't many things in the universe that emit precisely periodic radio signals. The examples that we know of in our galaxy are radio pulsars and magnetic stars, which rotate and produce emission. beam is similar to a lighthouse," explains Dr. Michil.

The Daily Mail, citing research, said the three-second duration of the mysterious beam was a record, as it was 1,000 times longer than the average.

The preliminary study of this "heartbeat" radio signal has just been published in the scientific journal Nature.

There are many theories surrounding radio bursts: Due to a catastrophic cosmic event such as a black hole collision, a neutron star; why pulsars, magnetic stars or other extreme objects are not well understood; due to an alien civilization more advanced than ours.

Extreme forms of neutron stars such as pulsars or magnetic stars are often the most popular hypothesis, because they are extremely powerful, enough to shoot radio waves thousands or millions of light-years away to reach Earth.

Neutron stars are the dense and powerful "zombie" part of a massive star that has exhausted its energy and dies, carrying extremely powerful energy and is one of the most dangerous extreme objects in the universe.