
A mysterious radio burst that keeps repeating - wglb
https://www.sciencealert.com/right-on-schedule-a-repeating-fast-radio-burst-has-woken-up
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Cyphase
Here's the section on FRB 121102 on the "Fast radio burst" Wikipedia page:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_radio_burst#FRB_121102](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_radio_burst#FRB_121102)

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m3kw9
“ within those milliseconds, they can discharge as much power as hundreds of
millions of Suns.”

Didn’t know that

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muthdra
But is it the full power of the entire life of millions of suns or the
equivalent of what millions of suns produce in a millisecond?

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rabidrat
Power is by definition per unit time.

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sgt101
Although these bursts are coming from a place where time is rather more spread
out than it is here.

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solarengineer
What does that mean!? Might a millisecond there last as long as a few of our
Earth seconds? What is this concept called ( for me to read up on it)?

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sgt101
I think this is a good place to have a look :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_time_dilation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_time_dilation)

My assumption is that the place that this burst is coming from is near a very
large, very dense mass.

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xutopia
If I were trying to let intelligent life elsewhere know that I exist and that
I am intelligent I would have to create a patterned noise that distinguishes
itself from natural noises that could be formed spontaneously. Talk about a
challenge!

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yencabulator
I believe the standard solution is to send a sequence of signals with
durations being consecutive prime numbers (multiplied by some unit of time,
but that's irrelevant).

The canonical answer ("Yes, I am very smart too") is to reply with a
continuation of the sequence where the transmission stopped.

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eru
You could also eg convert the sequence from binary into graycode instead of
continuing it.

Just any simple transformation that's obviously not background noise.

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jldugger
Interstellar numbers station.

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hindsightbias
Better than an interstellar microwave weapon

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aspyct
The article was nice, but when I hit the back button , the site scrolled to a
suggested article and told me "hey, check this before you go".

No, just let me use my back button.

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detaro
> _Please don 't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and
> similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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squarefoot
> Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and
> similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting

I partially disagree with this rule. Complaining about crappy websites might
be annoying for old timers and experienced techies, but let's say a 22 years
old fresh web programmer joins HN to read some news and discovers that the
framework/library/tool his PM suggested produces a pile of crappy code that
renders every site slow as molasses, and the same product is used on a site
getting hard criticism about that; he could actually learn something and
ultimately find a better solution for his job, ultimately contributing to make
a better web. I know I'm taking it to the extreme, but you get my point. I
would rather change that line to something like "keep concise and to the
minimum all comments about site formatting, slowness etc. and don't reply to
those comments unless you can recomment a better solution".

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pc86
But it _is_ a rule and as such should be respected whether we agree with it or
not, for the same reasons we don't ignore the other rules in that list. You
can email dang and try to convince him to change it, he's an extremely
reasonable person.

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_nalply
For me it looks like a source with two rotations, one for the millisecond
cycle and the other for the 157-day cycle. Perhaps something is obstructing
the source and is rotating around it.

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Florin_Andrei
Magnetar orbiting a black hole or something.

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valuearb
And we know it’s a 157 day orbit.

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ccozan
Could be a tidal lock of a pulsar around a black hole. We only get the
milisecond because the black hole is obscuring the burst pointing to us.
Otherwise the beam is not pointed at us.

(P)--->\---- ( BH ) ----> ( Solar System )

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avmich
Reminds Stanislaw Lem's His Master's Voice.

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TedDoesntTalk
I’ve been reading Lem’s work lately but haven’t gotten to this one. Do you
recommend it?

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avmich
Wrote too long a review :) in short words - yes, I'd recommend it, I like it a
lot - and know many people who don't.

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taneq
Check the staff roster to see if the bursts match up with anyone using the
downstairs microwave.

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userbinator
The background to that reference is
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peryton_(astronomy)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peryton_\(astronomy\))

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comfrey
My favorite part of that story IIRC is that it only registered when people
opened the microwave before the alarm went off.

I am more patient now to let the microwave complete after hearing about
subtleties of the microwave emissions.

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taneq
Me too, I now either wait for it to time out or hit the stop button before
opening the door. It's completely irrational and I feel a bit silly for it
since I don't live anywhere near a radio observatory, but I still do it.

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rhn_mk1
WiFi users in your neighborhood are thankful.

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skee0083
So. Is it aliens or not.

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doctoboggan
It’s never aliens

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dylan604
The radio bursts are alien to us. They come from another place that is not
here, therefore, alien.

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trentnix
You’re trying too hard.

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dylan604
Oh not at all. I can come up with lame things like this all day long. No
effort was exerted what so ever. =)

