Could Mysterious Radio Signal Found In Space Be Connected To Aliens?

A mysterious radio signal in space that bursts out in a heartbeat-like pattern was discovered by scientists.

Astronomers, who used the CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) radio telescope, noticed a strange fast radio burst (FRB) from a far-off galaxy billions of light-years from Earth, reported Mashable India. The signal lasted for around three seconds, which is quite long for an FRB.

According to a press release from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the scientists also detected "bursts of radio waves that repeat every 0.2 seconds in a clear periodic pattern, similar to a beating heart."

CHIME picked up the signal of a potential FRB on Dec. 21, 2019. Daniele Michilli, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, found it "unusual." He said that not only was it very long, but there were "periodic peaks that were remarkably precise, emitting every fraction of a second — boom, boom, boom — like a heartbeat." He shared that this was the first time the "signal itself is periodic."

But it seems like it was not aliens reaching out to humans. Scientists think that the signal is probably coming from a type of neutron star. Michilli, part of the team that discovered the FRB, to MIT, said that there are not many things in the universe that "emit strictly periodic signals." He shared that examples they know of in our own galaxy are "radio pulsars and magnetars." They rotate and "produce a beamed emission similar to a lighthouse, and we think this new signal could be a magnetar or pulsar on steroids."

The first FRB was found in 2007, and since then hundreds of similar radio flashes have been detected across the universe. As the Earth rotates, CHIME continuously observes the sky. It is designed to pick up radio waves emitted by hydrogen in the earliest stages of the universe. The telescope is sensitive to fast radio bursts. Since it started observing the sky in 2018, it has detected hundreds of FRBs emanating from different parts of the sky.

Michilli said that future telescopes promise to "discover thousands of FRBs a month, and at that point we may find many more of these periodic signals.”