FRB's are fast radio bursts originating from distant galaxies, billions of light-years away. They are mysterious and rarely detected bursts of radio emission that have durations of milliseconds. These events emit as much energy in one millisecond as the Sun emits in 10,000 years, but the physical phenomenon that causes them is still totally unknown.
The first FRB was discovered in 2007, although it was actually observed some six years earlier, in archival data from a pulsar survey of the Magellanic Clouds. Only 18 FRBs have ever been detected to date and mostly give off only a single burst and don't flash repeatedly. Some of the brainy folk have even speculated that some super advanced alien intelligence may have built something which could power interstellar light sails.
The amount of power involved would be sufficient to push a payload of a million tons, or about 20 times the largest cruise ships on Earth.“That’s big enough to carry living passengers across interstellar or even intergalactic distances,” Dr. Lingam said. To power a light sail, the transmitter would need to focus a beam on it continuously.
Observers on Earth would see a brief flash because the sail and its host planet, star and galaxy are all moving relative to us. As a result, the beam sweeps across the sky and only points in our direction for a moment. Repeated appearances of the beam, which were observed but cannot be explained by cataclysmic astrophysical events, might provide important clues about its artificial origin.
Hmm...even if some alien civilization did build this baby to power interstellar light sails, or reheat a pot of Irish stew; we are looking back in time to something that was conceived billions of years before our solar system even existed.
The first FRB was discovered in 2007, although it was actually observed some six years earlier, in archival data from a pulsar survey of the Magellanic Clouds. Only 18 FRBs have ever been detected to date and mostly give off only a single burst and don't flash repeatedly. Some of the brainy folk have even speculated that some super advanced alien intelligence may have built something which could power interstellar light sails.
The amount of power involved would be sufficient to push a payload of a million tons, or about 20 times the largest cruise ships on Earth.“That’s big enough to carry living passengers across interstellar or even intergalactic distances,” Dr. Lingam said. To power a light sail, the transmitter would need to focus a beam on it continuously.
Observers on Earth would see a brief flash because the sail and its host planet, star and galaxy are all moving relative to us. As a result, the beam sweeps across the sky and only points in our direction for a moment. Repeated appearances of the beam, which were observed but cannot be explained by cataclysmic astrophysical events, might provide important clues about its artificial origin.
Hmm...even if some alien civilization did build this baby to power interstellar light sails, or reheat a pot of Irish stew; we are looking back in time to something that was conceived billions of years before our solar system even existed.
