
Revolutionary radio telescope detects bevy of fast radio bursts - breckuh
http://news.mit.edu/2019/revolutionary-radio-telescope-detects-bevy-fast-radio-bursts-0109
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eps
I visited that observatory few years ago.

Was in Okanagan for cherries and wine and just noticed a bunch of satellite
dishes on Google Maps. Drove to check em out - lo and behold it's an
observatory, with public tours, with one starting in 10 minutes. Had no choice
but to go in. Interesting place. Quite a few people walking around with coffee
mugs in their hand and looking as spaced out as your average developer
deciphering a fresh kernel whoops from last night. Needless to say the
atmosphere was spot on :)

If you are in a vicinity, it's worth a visit.

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52-6F-62
Noted! I love BC, lived in Alberta a while— the Okanagan has been on the list
for some time. Had no idea there were observatories there. I missed out on
visiting the ones in Kona while I was there, so it's nice to know there are
some accessible ones closer to home (though no cheaper of a flight from
Toronto...)

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everdev
> Scientists believe FRBs emanate from powerful astrophysical phenomena
> billions of light years away, but they have yet to determine their origin.

Are there any leading theories?

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Already__Taken
r/space at least has some comments before going completely off the rails
[https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/ae7c1b/13_more_fast_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/ae7c1b/13_more_fast_radio_bursts_frbs_detected_by/edncjrr)

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k9s9
I just saw that well written comment and was thinking it's a crazy thing -
that an astronomer at a large gathering of astronomers, surrounded by so many
interesting people, discussing so many interesting things, takes a timeout to
go and post an elaborate comment on reddit.

What is that crazy need we have to put in work, for no great gain, to keep
utterly random people around the world updated in real time of whatever is
going on?

These days, I seem to stop myself reading the news article , just head over to
the right forum, and look for such comments. It's like the news industry has
become more or less irrelevant, other than in surfacing a list of headlines,
which then seed my "find best comment" search algorithm.

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stargazer-3
Not such a crazy thing at all! From an astronomer's perspective, it's a rare
opportunity to connect to people not working in the field about his/her field
of study. Trying to break down all the jargon and explain the general state of
the field is a mental exercise akin to cleaning your desk - it's both
satisfying and puts things in place.

We don't get a lot of opportunities to talk about this - you can't annoy your
friends with work talk all the time, so going for "utterly random people" is
your only chance unless you're in science communication.

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growt
Is it possible that the Wow-signal was an FRB?

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flukus
Probably not.

The Wow signal lasted for at least 72 seconds, FRB's last milliseconds.

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Yaggo
Is it basically a phased array antenna? (for relatively low frequencies)

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RedOrGreen
It's a full interferometer, although for the pulsar and FRB modes, they are
tiling the field of view with many, many phased array beams. (Yes, the
computation requirements are horrendous.)

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kowdermeister
I just watched a video about it yesterday:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaqUl3I3y_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaqUl3I3y_Q)

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audio1001
Aliens.

