Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts From Outside Galaxy Baffle Scientists: Cataclysmic Signals From 11 Billion Light Years Away

Radio blasts from other galaxies are baffling scientists. The puzzling radio blasts constantly explode across the night sky, a new study suggests.

Researchers have detected four new explosive events, known as fast radio bursts (FRBs).

The blasts are brief, lasting only a few thousandths of a second, but they these send powerful signals across the universe. The bursts travel for billions of light-years through space.

"These bursts gave off more energy in a millisecond than the sun does in 300,000 years," said principal investigator Dan Thornton. He is from the University of Manchester, UK.

"These are extragalactic in origin - not from the Milky Way - but the source is likely located in another galaxy," Thornton said.

The blasts originated billions of light years away. They were most likely caused by a catastrophic event in the distant Universe.

"If we could actually work out the galaxy the bursts came from then we could count the number of electrons in the universe. It would be the first time that anyone has been able to do that," Thornton said.

If they were able to do that, they would know the mass of matter in the entire universe.

Using models, the team was able to tell that the concluded that the FRBs traveled billions of light-years.  They were able to narrow down the origins of the bursts.

"They are so bright and narrow that we can limit the size of the emission region at the source to just a few hundred kilometers," Thornton said.

The origins of the bursts are unknown, as no corresponding object could be observed in any wavelength. The scientists examined optical, gamma or X-ray wavelengths to attempt to find a match.

"Other variable extragalactic radio sources vary on timescales of days to months," Thornton said. "FRBs happen in just a few milliseconds."

The fast radio bursts were most likely from explosions in magnetic neutron stars, or Magnetars. The bursts ranged from 5.5 to 10 billion light-years away. Thus, it took the light from them about 10 billion years to reach the planet Earth.  In contrast, the Big Bang  was 13.8 billion years ago.

Researchers now think that an FRB should occur once every 10 seconds.

"Our favorite explanation is a giant burst from a magnetar, a highly magnetized type of neutron star," Thornton said.