Extragalactic radio bursts detected
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.027152
Science News : Four millisecond-long bursts of radio waves were picked up recently by the Parkes radio telescope in Australia. The event was only the second detection of a radio burst originating from beyond the Milky Way. Although scientists estimate that as many as 10 000 such events occur every day, current telescopes are too limited in their field of view to detect the short-lived bursts and lack the ability to quickly pinpoint their origin. So far, the source of the radio bursts remains unknown, although scientists propose they could be emissions from black holes, supernovae, neutron stars, or magnetars. Telescopes with much larger fields of view, such as the Square Kilometre Array , are being constructed to detect and study such radio bursts with the goal of one day using them to probe the magneto-ionic properties of the intergalactic medium.
