First ever recorded 'fast radio burst' from space under 700MHz
Canada's newest radio telescope CHIME (short for Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) recorded the first fast radio burst featuring low-frequency waves in late July. The novel signal was reported by McGill University astronomer Patrick Boyle in the Astronomer's Telegram last week.
"The event is clearly detected at frequencies as low as 580 MHz and represents the first detection of an FRB at radio frequencies below 700 MHz," Boyle wrote in his report.
Fast Radio Bursts (FRB's), as the name suggests, are brief bursts of radio waves at super-fast speeds of a few milliseconds and come from far beyond our Milky Way galaxy. FRB's have been regularly recorded by telescopes and studied by astronomers, but scientists have struggled to explain their origins.
The CHIME Telescope is located at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO), a national facility for astronomy operated by the National Research Council of Canada.
Astronomers are, however, getting better at tracking the signals. The phenomenon was first detected and reported in 2007. An earlier FRB study used a combination of telescopes to trace its origin to an elliptical galaxy located 6 billion light-years away.
The study of another FRB -- and its unique twisting pattern -- suggested the signal originated near a supermassive black hole.
Scientists do know fast radio bursts are extremely bright and travel from far away. Their intensity suggests they are produced by extremely powerful phenomena.
The CHIME telescope's large collection area, wide bandwidth and enormous field-of-view apparently make it a great detector of FRBs. The CHIME FRB event rate is predicted to be between two and 50 FRBs per day.
"If we had one of these on the other side of our own galaxy -- the Milky Way -- it would disrupt radio here on Earth, and we'd notice, as it would saturate the signal levels on our smartphones," astronomer Shami Chatterjee said earlier this year. "Whatever is happening there is scary. We would not want to be there."
Some amateur astronomers have suggested the fast radio bursts are produced by highly advanced civilizations located in billions of light-years away. The scenario sounds far-fetched, but astronomers have acknowledged they can't rule out an artificial source.