Scientists have uncovered a mysterious “alien” signal from a faraway galaxy.
Researchers from Northwestern University in the United States detected a fast radio burst (FRB), powerful radio blasts from deep space that generate more energy in one quick burst than our sun emits in a year.
Some think this could be aliens attempting to reach out to other intelligent life or specifically contact Earth, while others think black holes or collapsed stars are the source.
The team found an FRB that produced 21 bursts, each lasting just a few milliseconds, from February to July 2023. They were traced back to a ‘dead’ galaxy that no longer produces stars.
Before this, scientists believed FRBs only came from younger galaxies so this discovery makes the origins of this cosmic events more diverse.
The team narrowed down the source to an 11.3-billion-year-old galaxy two billion light-years from Earth (approximately 12 sextillion miles), finding it to be “extremely luminous and incredibly massive — 100 billion times the mass of our sun”.
Radio Astronomer Tarraneh Eftekhari said: “It seems to be the most massive FRB host galaxy to date. It’s among some of the most massive galaxies out there.”
“The prevailing theory is that FRBs come from magnetars (dying stars with a powerful magnetic field) formed through core-collapse supernovae. That doesn’t appear to be the case here. While young, massive stars end their lives as core-collapse supernovae, we don’t see any evidence of young stars in this galaxy.
“Thanks to this new discovery, a picture is emerging that shows not all FRBs come from young stars. Maybe there is a subpopulation of FRBs that are associated with older systems.”
Vishwangi Shah, a doctoral student at McGill University Canada and co-author of the study, said: “This is not only the first FRB to be found outside a dead galaxy, but compared to all other FRBs, it’s also the farthest from the galaxy it’s associated with.
“The FRB’s location is surprising and raises questions about how such energetic events can occur in regions where no new stars are forming. This particular FRB is really an outlier, and it challenges our theories about what is producing FRBs.”
