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Astronomers Catch Mysterious Radio Blast From the Distant Universe

Tony2X

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This is not your planet.
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Indeed, for five years, that Parkes telescope was the sole spotter of fast radio bursts, and eventually observed another half-dozen or so.
That changed in November 2012, when the Arecibo Observatory spotted a fast radio burst. Like the Parkes signals, it looked as though it came from billions of light-years away. While the observation strongly suggested the bursts were not a telescope artifact, scientists still had yet to see one in real time: All of the observations so far had been pulled from data that were at least a few weeks old.
Then, on May 14, 2014, Swinburne University’s Emily Petroff spotted a fast radio burst in the act of blasting. She and her colleagues determined the signal came from as far as 5.5 billion light-years away and was mildly polarized, suggesting a magnetic field somewhere near its origin has aligned the waves in particular directions.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic...erious-radio-blast-from-the-distant-universe/
 
5.5 billion ly away?

Really adds truth to the "a long time ago in a galaxy far away"!

Imagine if it is a signal, their entire civilization could have disappeared before life even really got started on earth.
 
The earth is only 4.5 billion years old, right? So this signal was "sent" one billion years before the earth formed. Is this right?
Light years are a measure of distance, not time. Also, the Earth was not formed at the same time the Universe was. I hope this doesn't go all religiousy.
 
Light years are a measure of distance, not time. Also, the Earth was not formed at the same time the Universe was. I hope this doesn't go all religiousy.
In vacuum radio waves travel at the speed of light. So in this case it can be used as a measure of time as well. Though I have no idea how they came to the estimation of the distance of the source. But it doesn't matter, because baby Jesus only created the universe about 6k-10k years ago...
 
The surest sign that there is intelligent life in the universe is that they have never tried to contact us.
Would WE want to communicate with a civilization that is 1 billion years behind us?
They have been in contact with use for thousands of years.
 
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