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Another Repeating Fast Radio Burst in Deep Space Has Been Found

Article by Fox News Channel                            June 12, 2020                         (fox6now.com)

• After finding the first-known repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) in February (see previous ExoArticle here), researchers have discovered another repeating FRB in deep space that has them baffled. According to a newly published study in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, FRB 121102, which has been observed since 2016 by Britain’s Lovell Telescope, was discovered to have a 157-day repeating pattern. It shows activity for 90 days and then goes silent for 67 days.

• “Using the pulses detected in the Lovell data along with pulses from the literature, we report a detection of periodic behavior of the source over the span of 5 years of data,” according to the study. The deep space source is currently ‘off’, and it should turn ‘on’ again from June 2 to August 28, 2020.

• “This exciting discovery highlights how little we know about the origin of FRBs,” said a co-author of the study, Duncan Lorimer. “Further observations of a larger number of FRBs will be needed in order to obtain a clearer picture about these periodic sources and elucidate their origin.”

• The FBR found in February has a 16-day repeating pattern. It may be repeating due to it orbiting a compact object, for example, a black hole, causing its pattern to repeat, according to the study. It’s also possible that it could be coming from a binary star system, but more research is needed.

• It’s unknown how common FRBs are and why some of them repeat, while others do not. Their origins are also mysterious in nature. Some researchers speculate that FRBs come from an extraterrestrial civilization. But SETI (the ‘Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute’) says that because these FRBs come from all over space, “arranging cooperative alien behavior …seems unlikely.”

• The first (non-repeating) FRB was discovered in 2007. Some of them can generate as much energy as 500 million suns in a few milliseconds.

 

NEW YORK — After finding the first-known repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) in February, researchers have discovered another repeating FRB in deep space that has them baffled.

            Duncan Lorimer

FRB 121102, which has been observed since 2016 by the Lovell Telescope in the U.K., was discovered to have a 157-day repeating pattern. It shows activity for 90 days and then goes silent for 67 days, according to a newly published study in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

“Using the pulses detected in the Lovell data along with pulses from the literature, we report a detection of periodic behavior of the source over the span of 5 yr of data,” researchers wrote in the study. “We predict that the source is currently ‘off’ and that it should turn ‘on’ for the approximate MJD range 59002−59089 (2020 June 2 to 2020 August 28).”

It’s unclear what’s causing the pattern to repeat, leaving researchers to realize just how little they know about FRBs.

“This exciting discovery highlights how little we know about the origin of FRBs,” said one of the study’s co-authors, Duncan Lorimer, in a statement. “Further observations of a larger number of FRBs will be needed in order to obtain a clearer picture about these periodic sources and elucidate their origin.”

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NASA’s Kepler Telescope Discovers a Colossal Artificial Structure Orbiting a Star in Our Vicinity

Listen to “E146 NASA's Kepler Telescope Discovers a Colossal Artificial Structure Orbiting a Star in Our Vicinity” on Spreaker.

Article by Steve                      October 15, 2015                      (ufoholic.com)

•  A paper submitted by Tabitha Boyajian, an astronomer at Yale, to the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (in 2015) described a particular star named KIC 8462852 orbiting only 1,500 light years from Earth. “… KIC 8462852 (aka “Tabby’s Star”), was observed by the Kepler Space Telescope (image above) to undergo irregularly shaped, aperatic dips in flux down to below the twenty percent level.” “We’d never seen anything like this star. It was really weird. (But the data) checked out.”

• The study mostly focused on two interesting anomalies of the star. The first event was recorded between days 788 and 795 of the Kepler mission and showed a single transit causing a star brightness drop-off of 15 percent. The second event was recorded between days 1510 to 1570 and showed a burst of several transits with a brightness dip of up to 22 percent. The transiting objects have to be extremely big.

• Scientists are now trying to point a radio antenna at KIC 8462852 in order to pick up their television shows to solve the riddle. Meanwhile, a second paper is being drafted around the possibility of the light obstruction being caused a colossal artificial device engineered by advanced aliens.

• Considering that our galaxy has existed for more than 13 billion years, it’s not hard to imagine that an alien civilization may be out there, possessing technology that allows them to build megastructures around stars. Jason Wright, a fellow astronomer at Penn State said, “This looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build.” Researchers are hypothesizing the possibility of a mega-engineered project created by a Type 2 alien civilization on the Kardashev scale. With a vast shell or series of rings surrounding a star, a Dyson sphere-like structure could use all the available energy radiating from a star.

 

Besides Kepler’s ability of finding small, rocky worlds orbiting distant stars, it can also detect different space phenomenon like stellar flares, star spots and dusty planetary rings.

This time however, Kepler detected the signal of a supposed vast artificial structure orbiting a star only 1,500 light years away from Earth.

After finishing all plausible explanations, scientists now believe that this complex structure might be an artificial construction made by an advanced alien civilization way up on the Kardashev scale of comparison.

This megastructure works like a supersized solar array orbiting around its host star, stocking the energy and sending it back to the source. The size of the structure is so grand that it’s blocking a considerable fraction of starlight as it spins around its host.

Normally all the exoplanets discovered by Kepler have a typical planet-shape, meaning they are round. This time however, the telescope detected something that isn’t round and behaves unnatural.

A paper has been submitted to the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in which a particular star named KIC 8462852 is described.

OVER THE DURATION OF THE KEPLER MISSION, KIC 8462852 WAS OBSERVED TO UNDERGO IRREGULARY SHAPED, APERIODIC DIPS IN FLUX DOWN TO BELOW THE TWENTY PERCENT LEVEL.

WE’D NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS STAR, IT WAS REALLY WEIRD. WE THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE BAD DATA OR MOVEMENT ON THE SPACECRAFT, BUT EVERYTHING CHECKED OUT. – TABETHA BOYAJIAN, RESEARCHER AT YALE UNIVERSITY

Studies mostly focused on two interesting anomalies at KIC 8462852, one that was recorded between days 788 and 795 of the Kepler mission and between days 1510 to 1570.

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Alien Life Could Be Evolving on Four Nearby Exoplanets Right Now

April 12, 2019                 (rt.com)

• In a study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Cornell University scientists have found that life here on Earth evolved from creatures that endured even greater UV radiation exposure than some of the closest exoplanets outside our solar system. By modelling the surface UV environments of our four closest potentially habitable exoplanetary neighbors, the authors found that these exoplanets’ radiation exposure was significantly lower than what Earth received 3.9 billion years ago.

• They conclude that ultraviolet radiation should not be considered a limiting factor in the search for planets that can host life. The four planets studied were: Proxima-b; TRAPPIST-1e; Ross-128b; and LHS-1140b. The researchers also found that rocky outliers in the habitable zone of neighboring red dwarf stars could host life despite the planets’ high levels of radiation exposure.

 

Scientists studying the habitability of Earth-like worlds have discovered that the conditions for alien life exist on some of the nearest planets to our solar system.

The researchers found that rocky outliers in the habitable zone of neighboring red dwarf stars could host life despite the planets’ high levels of radiation exposure.

In a study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Cornell University scientists found that life here on Earth evolved from creatures that endured even greater UV radiation exposure than nearly a handful of the closest exoplanets, i.e. planets outside our solar system.

By modelling the surface UV environments of our four closest potentially habitable exoplanetary neighbors, the authors found that these exoplanets’ radiation exposure was significantly lower than what Earth received 3.9 billion years ago.

They concluded that ultraviolet radiation should not be considered a limiting factor in the search for planets that can host life. “Our closest neighboring worlds remain intriguing targets for the search for life beyond our solar system,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

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