Tag: radio waves

How we closed in on the location of a fast radio burst in a galaxy far, far away

Astronomers have spent the past dozen years hunting for fast radio bursts (FRBs) – flashes of radio waves that come from outer space and last just milliseconds. And after a dozen years of work we still don’t know exactly what causes them, only that it must be something very powerful, as they’ve clearly travelled a long way (billions of light-years). Source:…

Mystery radio waves from space tracked to a surprising home galaxy

For the second time, astronomers have tracked a strange blast of radio waves from space to its host galaxy – and it is strangely different from the first one Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207854-mystery-radio-waves-from-space-tracked-to-a-surprising-home-galaxy/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

Astronomers make first detection of polarised radio waves in Gamma Ray Burst jets

Good fortune and cutting-edge scientific equipment have allowed scientists to observe a Gamma Ray Burst jet with a radio telescope and detect the polarisation of radio waves within it for the first time—moving us closer to an understanding of what causes the universe’s most powerful explosions. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-06-astronomers-polarised-radio-gamma-ray.html…

ALMA spies a cool gas ring around our Milky Way’s central black hole

New observations by the ALMA telescope in Chile have revealed a never-before-seen disk of cool, interstellar gas wrapped around Sagittarius A*, the giant black hole at the center of our galaxy. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/cool-gas-ring-milky-way-central-black-hole…

Clocks, gravity and the limits of relativity

A hundred years ago today, Einstein’s theory of gravity was first put to the test when Arthur Eddington observed light “bending” around the sun during a solar eclipse. A century later, scientists are still searching for the limits of the theory. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/clocks-gravity-limits-of-relativity…