Scientists find deep space radio signals all the time. Here’s what they mean.

When new york times First, I wrote about “mysterious radio waves”(opens in new tab)“From the 1933 universe, they made one basic caveat heed:”There is no evidence of interstellar signals. ”

Certainly the radio waves were not signals from aliens. After all, it’s never an alien.

But today, some 90 years later, you’ve no doubt seen headlines touting “strange radio signals coming from deep space.” They are one of the most clicked articles in the internet space. In fact, our planet is constantly bombarded with radio waves, a type of energy or light (such as visible light and X-rays) that is naturally produced throughout the universe. Radio waves can be detected using giant dish antennas because they reveal fascinating and very distant events that otherwise cannot be seen, such as star explosions and black holes that devour cosmic dust. is very important. they are normal. And they are not attempts at intergalactic communication.

“Since the dawn of radio astronomy, this is what astronomers have been doing,” says Yvette Sendes, an astronomer and postdoc at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. ‘ said.(opens in new tab)told Mashable.

These detected radio waves often come from nearly incomprehensible distant galaxies, many light-years away. For us they are like whispers in the wind. So astronomers have to use huge antennas to find them.

“This is what astronomers have been doing since the dawn of radio astronomy. They’re telling people, ‘We’re not aliens.'”

“If you put a cell phone on the moon, it would be one of the brightest radio sources in the sky,” Sendes explains. “These are very weak signals. The amount of energy collected in the history of radio astronomy is less than the energy required to melt a snowflake.”

Still, they reveal significant events in our galaxy and beyond.

What radio waves tell us

The black ether of the vast expanse of space may seem horribly silent. When viewed through the lens of visible light (far shorter wavelengths than radio waves), it’s true. But when viewed through radio waves, it’s the wild universe.

Poonam Chandra, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia, said, “The sky looks calm and calm, but if you look at the radio bands, there’s a very high-energy phenomenon going on in space. Chandra studies the explosion of massive stars in space.

However, radio astronomers don’t ask Misconceptions about radio waves, misconceptions shown in still exceptional sci-fi movies contactAstronomers like Cedes, who study black holes that use radio signals to tear apart matter, rely on radio dishes like the one shown above to collect these signals as they pass, and eventually Allows you to view distant objects and events. Radio waves come in different lengths (or “wavelengths”), and different events in the universe emit different radio waves. Essentially, astronomers can “tune in” to different channels that broadcast different cosmic “shows.” (To be able to see cosmic events in greater detail, many large radio telescopes are attached to the same object to create what is essentially a giant telescope, like the Very Large Array in New Mexico.) are often directed.)

“The sky looks calm and serene, but when you look at the radio bands, there are very high-energy phenomena going on in space.”

Look up at the night sky and you’ll see a tranquil universe with twinkling stars and perhaps a nearby galaxy like Andromeda. But through radio telescopes, we spy on a landscape known as the “radio sky,” as shown in the first image below. All bright spots in the image below are not stars. Galaxies and quasars (very bright objects in the center of galaxies). That’s not all. Clouds of gas from exploding stars can also be seen.

Here are some common objects or cosmic events that generate radio waves.

1. Active Galactic Nucleus, or AGN: A supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy that emits intense energy into space. A black hole is a place where matter is squashed into a very compact area and has a gravitational pull that strong light can’t escape, allowing it to emit very bright jets of heat and gas (holes). Not all galaxies contain bright objects like this, but these black holes are so bright when detected with radio telescopes that astronomers can often see them, he says. explained Mr.

2. Huge Space Explosion: Massive stars explode frequently in space. Massive stars, much larger than the Sun, eventually run out of fuel, collapse, and explode in events called supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. A blast releases a bounty of energy. Some of this energy travels through space as gamma rays. Gamma rays are much more powerful than radio waves, but they pass quickly, taking only a few minutes.However, the radio waves emitted by the mass blown away from the star allow astronomers to I’ve been watching explosions for years. Radio waves give astronomers a lot of information about how stars exploded and even evolved, Chandra explained.

3. Star formation: Astronomers can tune in to radio waves to understand how stars form in other galaxies(opens in new tab) (Stars emit specific radio waves during formation). In 2022, astronomers detect radio waves from the most distant galaxy ever(opens in new tab), was born in the early days of the universe. The detection took the scientist a whopping 8.8 billion years back in time and allowed him to better understand what this galaxy was like.

4. Fast Radio Burst (FRB): Fast radio bursts are just that. A pulse of radio waves lasting milliseconds. They are often labeled “mysterious”, in part because astronomers are still studying where they come from and how they are made (the Fed blinks are inherently difficult to study because they occur in between). Evidence suggests that these high-speed radio signals come from “magnetars,” a type of neutron star (the collapsed core of a star).

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In fact, objects in space emit radio waves into space. “There are a lot of radios out there,” emphasized Sendes. And unlike stars and most objects in the solar system (planets, asteroids, etc.), radio waves can be seen day and night and are not blocked by adverse weather conditions.

Radio waves are often less mysterious. On the contrary, they are revealing. They reveal things in the depths of the evolving universe that otherwise cannot be seen. These radio signals help us understand how other galaxies and stars are born, and shed light on the story of our own universe in the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy.

“They’re not aliens, but they’re just as exciting,” Chandra said.