Astronomers detect ‘heartbeat-like’ signal from faraway galaxy

Astronomers have detected radio signals resembling a ‘heartbeat-like’ pattern from a far-away galaxy, billions of light years away from Earth.

According to a report in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology News, while scientists have identified the pattern as Fast Radio Bursts (FRB), they are yet to ascertain the source of the signal and suspect that it could either be a “magnetar or pulsar on steroids.”

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Even though astronomers have detected FRB earlier, the signal this time has lasted for a good three seconds, a thousand times longer than the average FRB which last a few milliseconds.

The team of scientists reportedly detected bursts of radio waves at an interval of 0.2 seconds within the three-second window.

The signal, the longest-lasting FRB with the clearest periodic pattern detected so far, has been named FRB 20191221A.

The signal was detected using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope in December 2019. The study about the discovery was published in the scientific journal Nature on Wednesday (July 13).

“It was unusual…not only was it very long, lasting about three seconds, but there were periodic peaks that were remarkably precise, emitting every fraction of a second – boom, boom, boom – like a heartbeat. This is the first time the signal itself is periodic,” Daniele Michili, a postdoctoral scholar at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, who was involved in the research said in a press release.

“There are not many things in the universe that emit strictly periodic signals. Examples that we know of in our own galaxy are radio pulsars and magnetars, which rotate and produce a beamed emission similar to a lighthouse,” Daniele added.

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The scientist said that the light’s source is in a galaxy which is several billion light-years from Earth.

Radio pulsar is a dense, magnetised neutron star that emits electromagnetic radiation. A magnetar is also a dense, neutron star with a powerful magnetic field and capable of emitting high-energy electromagnetic radiation like X-rays and gamma rays. Neutron stars are collapsed cores of stars larger than the sun.

Scientists say that the signal could have also come from the merging of two neutron stars.

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The team of scientists is looking forward to detect more periodic signals from the source to use it as an astrophysical clock. The frequency of the radio bursts and the way they change as the source or the suspected neutron star moves away from earth, could help scientists in assessing the rate at which the universe is expanding.