Fast Radio Burst Signal detected...

• by leonie_van_vliet

  The mysterious signal detected last year, picked up by New Mexico's radio telescope, an FRB is discovered in a Dwarf-system
  3 Billion lightyears away! Difficult to detect, the signal had a duration of just a few milliseconds. Just 18 signals detected since 2007. Just one signal, FRB 121102 did flash repeatedly so scientist were able to find its source!

  This is prove of dedication, people of science try to unravel the mysteries of our Universe still have their work cut out.
  Many theories how come such phenomenon occur... Lots of work to be done & to figure this out.
  Read about it in Nature magazine! Last update in 05-01-17 13:43

  For now congratulations are in order for all those involved!
  Hoping I am not the only one in awe of their achievement...

  Leonie...

  Posted January 5, 2017 3:13 PM

• by JeanTate in response to leonie_van_vliet's comment.

  There are no less than four preprints on the arXiv server, dated Thursday 5 January 2017, on this object!

  • Chatterjee+ "The direct localization of a fast radio burst and its host", https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.01098
  • Marcote+ "The Repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB 121102 as Seen on Milliarcsecond Angular Scales", https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.01099
  • Tendulkar+ "The Host Galaxy and Redshift of the Repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB 121102", https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.01100
  • Lingam&Loeb, "Fast Radio Bursts from Extragalactic Light Sails", https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.01109

  I'm not sure the last one is in quite the same class as the other three ... 😉

  Posted January 8, 2017 6:54 PM

• by ivywong scientist, admin

  Yes, the localisation of this FRB to a dwarf galaxy is very interesting work and certainly has been the topic of many conversations 😃

  Posted January 10, 2017 6:08 AM

• by JeanTate in response to ivywong's comment.

  As I understand it, FRB 121102 is a repeating FRB, one of only a few (the only one?). It - or something very close to it (on the sky) - is also a faint, ~constant radio source. Maybe both features point to it being a different class of object from (almost) all the other FRBs?

  Posted January 10, 2017 8:01 PM

• by ivywong scientist, admin

  From memory, there is only 1 repeating FRB. They are of course looking for more....

  Posted January 12, 2017 6:14 AM