Alien-hunting telescope captures 35 ‘whistling’ fast radio bursts come from a galaxy one billion light-years from Earth

An alien-hunting telescope in California has captured dozens of mysterious energy bursts shooting through deep space.

These astronomical phenomena, known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), are characterized by short, intense pulses of radio waves from unknown sources.

The SETI Institute picked up 35 strange signals, noting a significant drop in the central frequency of the explosions that sounded like a “cosmic gliding whistle.”

The source is an FRB located in another galaxy about a billion light-years from Earth.

It is not currently known what produces fast radio bursts, but they are generally thought to be emitted by dying stars in distant galaxies, also known as magnetars.

Magnetars have a strong magnetic field, which scientists believe shoots radio waves through space.

Some explosions appear to be one-time events; less than 5% of the hundreds observed have been seen to reoccur, sometimes in a regular pattern.

However, scientists at the SETI Institute discovered one using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) telescope, which kept repeating 35 times over the course of two months.

This discovery confirmed previously believed properties of explosions, but also led researchers to uncover new, never-before-seen patterns.

The SETI Institute picked up 35 strange signals, noting “a marked decrease in the center frequency of the explosions that sounded like a ‘cosmic gliding whistle’.”

The observations covered a wide range of radio frequencies and revealed fascinating patterns – all 35 fast radio bursts were found at the bottom of the frequency spectrum, each with its own unique energy signature.

Lead author Dr Sofia Shaikh said: “This work is exciting because it provides confirmation of known FRB properties and the discovery of some new ones.”

“We are narrowing down the source of fast radio bursts, for example, to extreme objects such as magnetars, but no existing model can explain all the properties observed so far.”

The study is based on recurring FRB 20220912A, which the team found has no clear pattern of when it releases energy or the time between each.

Such bursts usually last only a few milliseconds, and most disappear, but FRB 20220912A is known for its unique behavior that allows scientists to pinpoint its location.

The team observed a decrease in the frequency of the bursts, and when they were converted to sound, this decrease mimicked the tones of a whistle when played.

Fast radio bursts have puzzled scientists since they were first “heard” by radio telescopes in 2007.

Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggested in 2017 that the signals could be evidence of the presence of deep space explorers billions of light-years from Earth.

Loeb and his team determined that leakage from the transmitters could lead to brief flashes detected here on Earth as the probe's sail, host planet, its star, and galaxy move relative to our world.

“The synthetic origin is worth thinking about and investigating,” Loeb said.