Fast radio bursts, the mysterious signals that reach the earth from the deep nooks of the space has been perplexing scientists since its discovery in 2007. Due to its unexplained nature, many space scientists speculated that these bursts could be signals sent by aliens to proclaim their presence, while some others claimed that these bursts could be of natural origin. Now, in an interesting development, researchers have spotted the originating point of a non-repeating fast radio burst.
This research report published in the journal Science suggested that these mysterious signals are coming from the outskirts of another galaxy that is located almost four billion light years away. During the study, researchers tracked the originating point of FRB 180924, a powerful, one-off fast radio burst, and found that this fast radio burst has come from a distant galaxy that seems very similar to the Milky Way.
Even though the galaxy is so big, scientists successfully located the origin of these mysterious signals within it. The research report revealed that the exact cosmic city block of these fast radio bursts are located approximately 13,000 light years from the center of the galaxy.
As speculations regarding the origin of these fast radio bursts range from neutron bursts to alien signals, experts believe that this new finding has taken humans one step closer to resolve the mysteries surrounding these cosmic signals.
"This is the big breakthrough that the field has been waiting for since astronomers discovered fast radio bursts in 2007. The evidence certainly points to FRBs living in a very wide range of environments. In that sense, it isn't surprising that their bursting properties, whether they repeat or not, would vary widely too," said Keith Bannister, a principal research engineer with Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the lead author of the study, CNET reports.
Interestingly, Bannister did not rule out the possibility of an extraterrestrial connection behind the origin of these mysterious radio bursts.
