The mysterious signal from within our galaxy is REPEATING, scientists say

The first explosion of cosmic radio waves detected in our galaxy is repeating itself, according to scientists, shedding new light on one of the great mysteries of the universe.

The ultra-bright flashes of energy, more powerful than those emitted by the Sun, come from a young star about 30,000 light-years from Earth.

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Several telescopes detected a cosmic signal from the star in April, and in a new paper, scientists reveal that it repeated twice in the following months.

Known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), these high intensity emissions usually only last for a fraction of a second.

FRBs were first detected in 2007, but nearly all of those detected so far were too far away to clearly understand where they came from.

More than 100 have been discovered so far, but only a handful have repeated, and even fewer in a predictable pattern.

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This makes them notoriously difficult to study, which means their origins have eluded scientists for over a decade.

The researchers say their recently discovered radio rockets are the closest FRBs identified to date and come from an object known as a magnetar.

Magnetars are a type of neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field – only a handful of them are thought to be present in the Milky Way.

Physicists have previously speculated that magnetars could produce FRBs, but there was no evidence to prove that this was the case.

The new research, published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy, builds on a groundbreaking paper published earlier this month on the FRB, known as FRB 200428.

That study confirmed that the magneton star SGR 1935 + 2154 signal was a fast radio burst.

This week’s research reveals that two new bursts of varying intensity have been emitted by the star since April, meaning the explosion repeats.

Using four European radio telescopes, researchers led by Chalmers University in Sweden monitored the source of the explosion every night for four weeks after its discovery.

On May 24, 2020, the Westerbork Radio Telescope in the Netherlands detected two radio bursts lasting one millisecond from the magnetar, 1.4 seconds apart.

“We clearly saw two explosions, extremely close in time,” said team member Dr Kenzie Nimmo of the University of Amsterdam.

“Like the flash seen from the same source on April 28, this looked just like the fast radio bursts we were seeing from the distant universe, only fainter.

“The two explosions we detected on May 24 were even weaker than that,” he added.

The study provides strong new evidence linking FRBs to magnestars, suggesting that one of the universe’s greatest mysteries is about to be solved.

The fact that the explosions have different intensities suggests that more than one process within stars can produce the cosmic signals.

However, questions still remain about how magnetars produce FRBs.

Dr Kiyoshi Masui, a physicist studying FRB at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, said earlier this year, “We are trying to piece together the meaning of this.

“We have our eyes open for other magnetars, but the important thing now is to study this single source and dig deeper to see what it tells us about how FRBs are made.”

In other news, astronomers have spotted the Moon flashing at us “over and over”.

Babies born today will see the first “self-sustaining human colony” on Mars.

And scientists haven’t been able to find alien life in scans of 1,300 stars, but they say they’re not giving up yet.

Do you think there is intelligent life in the universe? Let us know in the comments …

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