Mysterious Signal Coming From Space Represents a Premiere in Astronomy

Mysterious Signal Coming From Space Represents a Premiere in Astronomy
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For centuries, astronomers and even ordinary people are hoping for a sign from space from an advanced alien civilization. If any highly intelligent green friends with big black eyes truly are there, somewhere, common sense tells us that they would be willing to say “Hello!” somehow.

A new scientific discovery that Space.com speaks about grants us new hope that someone from deep space is finally trying to get in contact with us. Last year in April, two ground-based telescopes detected a fast radio burst (FRB) that lasted for only a millisecond. But even so, it was enough to be considered a major discovery.

The closest FRB in history!

The Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2 (STARE2) along with the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) are responsible for detecting the newfound FRB. The signal is unique because it was the first one discovered by scientists that came from within our own Milky Way galaxy. Being located at “only” about 30,000 light-years away from Earth, the signal was practically impossible to miss.

Kiyoshi Masui, who is an assistant professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, confirms it by stating, as quoted by Space.com:

CHIME wasn’t even looking in the right direction and we still saw it loud and clear in our peripheral vision.

There’s also a great advantage here: compared to all the other discovered fast radio bursts that were discovered beyond our galaxy, the one that makes the subject of this article should be much easier to study by astronomers. The farther away a signal of this type is, the harder it is to analyze it and track down its origin.

Obviously, more work is needed from astronomers to know for sure the source of the newfound FRB, but until we have a definitive answer, speculating remains the only option.


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Even since he was a child, Cristian was staring curiously at the stars, wondering about the Universe and our place in it. Today he's seeing his dream come true by writing about the latest news in astronomy. Cristian is also glad to be covering health and other science topics, having significant experience in writing about such fields.

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