NASA catches 'interdimensional' signal from world 12.8 billion years ago

NASA's Nel Gehrels Swift Observatory has picked up an incredible signal from a mysterious world in the early universe .

The unknown object that emitted the signal, called GRB210905A , has been around since the universe was only about 1 million years old. Because it is so far away, its light has taken 12.8 billion years to reach Earth, so what we are recording is not what is now, but what existed in a momentary explosion 12.8 billion years ago.

According to Space, scientists have re-examined the above ancient event with other powerful ground-based telescopes, including the Very Large Telescope and La Silla Observatory located in Chile of the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

The red dot in the middle of the main screen is a "cross-dimensional" gamma signal from the early universe - (Photo: ESO)

The strange signal, in the form of gamma rays, appeared only a moment in the past. It was a super-powerful burst that quickly faded away.

Gamma radiation comes from certain types of nuclear collisions and nuclear decay of radioactive substances and gamma ray bursts in the universe, known as GRBs , are very rare and shrouded in mystery.

According to research published in Astronomy and Astrophysics, astronomer Andrea Rossi from the National Institute of Astrophysics - Observatory of Astrophysics and Space Sciences of Bologna (INAF Bologna) - Italy believes that the most likely hypothesis is that it is emitted from matter being pulled in by the enormous gravity of a black hole.

He also doesn't rule out the possibility that it came from a magnetar — a type of extremely powerful neutron star that is the inert core of a dead, massive star — but GRB210905A is too energetic to be consistent with a magnetar.

To reach a final conclusion, scientists need to find more GRBs to compare and contrast, so super telescopes around the world are still "panning for gold". With what has just been discovered, anything emitted from such a distant and ancient world is a treasure that brings humanity closer to the secrets of the early universe.