Fast radio bursts are unpredictable bright pulses of radio emission, of extremely short duration (on the order of milliseconds), from largely unknown sources. FRB 121102 is the only one known to repeat. The new Breakthrough Listen observations, made with the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, bring the total of known high-energy bursts from this strange object to more than 150.
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The first known radio burst from FRB 121102 came on November 2, 2012 (hence the object’s name). Two more bursts occurred on May 17, 2015, and eight more on June 2, 2015. Astronomers had observed fast radio bursts (FRBs) in the past, but, because it repeats, this one quickly became the target of ongoing monitoring campaigns by instruments across the globe.
Why is this interesting? Well, it's either some kick-ass exotic object or...
A much more speculative idea is that the bursts are directed energy sources used by extraterrestrial civilizations to power spacecraft. Hence Breakthrough Listen’s interst in this object.
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Breakthrough Listen pointed out that – when the recently-detected pulses left their host galaxy – our own solar system was just 2 billion years old. Life on Earth consisted of only single-celled organisms, and it would be another billion years before even the simplest multi-cellular life began to evolve.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."