Radio Waves Detected Coming From Center of Galaxy

[Dover]

Radio Waves Detected Coming From Center of Galaxy

Brian Handwerk
National Geographic News

March 2, 2005
Astronomers have detected an unusual, powerful burst of intermittent radio waves emanating from the direction of the center of our galaxy.

Now the search is on to trace the source of the mystery radio bursts, or at least find more like it. Was it a dying star "burping" its last radio emissions? Or is there something out there completely new to science?


The discovery "will cause a stampede of further observations," write astronomers Shri Kulkarni and Sterl Phinney in tomorrow's issue of the science journal Nature. They're in the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Astronomer Scott Hyman of Sweet Briar College in Virginia helped make the discovery while observing the center of the Milky Way through radio telescopes set at various wavelengths. The galaxy is full of objects that emit radio waves, including black holes and stars of various kinds. But the cause of this particular burst of radio waves has astronomers scratching their heads.

"The most spectacular aspect of this is that five bursts occurred at regular intervals of about an hour and a quarter <77 minutes>," Hyman said. "They were at a constant intensity … and each burst had basically the same time profile." Each burst lasted about ten minutes...cont'd

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0302_050302_galactic_radio.html

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Powerful Radio Pulses Puzzle Astronomers

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7082

[Chipper Chat]

Sorta like the Jodie Foster movie - Contact?

Republicans will file this under "global warming hoax."

[tridim]

3. And the Fundies will say it's Gawd

Telling Bush to kill more Islamic people.

[benburch]

1. Little Green Men?

If so, little green men who can control stellar-level energy sources!

[Heyo]

2. Maybe it will speed up....

.... and end in a "dying pulse train", as a large amount of matter crosses the event horizon of the supermassive black hole that's there in the center of the galaxy.

How many licks does it take to get to the black hole in the center of a galaxy? The world may never know.

I'm sure there are all kinds of exotic radio sources located there. Lots of hot gas, high energy radiation, and very warped spacetime.

:hurts:

Heyo

[Spinzonner]

4. Howard Interstellarn

on the REAL Sirius Radio

[tridim]

5. It's "The Signal"..

Everyone keep their eye out for the monolith shaped stargate.

[DrGonzoLives]

6. Could confirm

the belief that the center of our galaxy is an enormous black hole. Radio waves are often used to surmise the positions of black holes throughout the galaxy - radio waves are kind of like the "dying gasp" of things being pulled into the singularity.