Scientists find repetitive radio signals from outside the galaxy

Astronomy and space exploration are both extremely intriguing subjects since they shed light on the nature of the universe and the origin of everything. One of the most exciting aspects of space exploration is the possibility of finding alien life. Whenever most people read the words “alien life”, they often assume flying saucers and green men with highly advanced weapons. However, alien life, in reality, is any living organism that is not from the earth. Finding alien life is considered the holy grail of astronomy. It is one of the many reasons why radio astronomy is exciting for scientists.

Astrophysicists have discovered another source of fast radio bursts (FRBs) from a distant location outside our galaxy. Even though more than a dozen such bursts have been discovered, this one has grabbed the attention of astronomers because it seems to be coming from the same location in the sky. This is only the second time that such a source of FRB has been found. FRBs by nature are incredibly brief, lasting only for milliseconds and scientists who have managed to find these bursts consider themselves lucky that they were pointing at the right time and right place in the sky. The FRBs detected so far have all originated billions of light years away.

Repetitive bursts increase the likelihood of their sources being known since there are a number of phenomena that can produce them, namely black holes, magnetars, quasars and so on. These are all incredibly dense (having masses that are several times that of the sun) and extremely powerful objects in the cosmos. One of the other sources may be some form of intelligent alien life. Whatever the source of the FRBs, this is an extremely important scientific discovery.