Astronomy: Precise location, distance provide breakthrough in study of fast radio bursts

[muriel_volestrangler]

For the first time, astronomers have pinpointed the location in the sky of a Fast Radio Burst (FRB), allowing them to determine the distance and home galaxy of one of these mysterious pulses of radio waves. The new information rules out several suggested explanations for the source of FRBs.

"We now know that this particular burst comes from a dwarf galaxy more than three billion light-years from Earth," said Shami Chatterjee, of Cornell University. "That simple fact is a huge advance in our understanding of these events," he added. Chatterjee and other astronomers presented their findings to the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Grapevine, Texas, in the scientific journal Nature, and in companion papers in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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The repeating bursts from this object, named FRB 121102 after the date of the initial burst, allowed astronomers to watch for it using the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), a multi-antenna radio telescope system with the resolving power, or ability to see fine detail, needed to precisely determine the object's location in the sky.
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The top candidates, the astronomers suggested, are a neutron star, possibly a highly-magnetic magnetar, surrounded by either material ejected by a supernova explosion or material ejected by a resulting pulsar, or an active nucleus in the galaxy, with radio emission coming from jets of material emitted from the region surrounding a supermassive black hole.

https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-01/nrao-pld010217.php

[Judi Lynn]

1. Scientists pinpoint location of unexplained space radio signals

Fast radio burst is coming from a dwarf galaxy over three billion light years from Earth

Alan Martin
@alan_p_martin
5 Jan 2017





A decade ago, scientists first detected fast radio bursts (FRB). They’re so-called because they’re incredibly powerful bursts of radio signals, but they’re extremely short-lived: a few milliseconds in length. Last year, scientists finally managed to catch one happening in real-time. And now we’ve managed to pinpoint where a repeating signal – FRB 121102 – is coming from. What is causing it is still open to speculation.

“We now know that this particular burst comes from a dwarf galaxy more than three billion light years from Earth,” explained Cornell University’s Shami Chatterjee.

Using the Very Large Array (VLA) telescope in New Mexico, 11 bursts from FRB 121102 were detected in 83 hours of observing time over a period of six months last year. Using the data, the team were able to pinpoint the bursts to a faint dwarf galaxy, over three billion light years from us. To put that into perspective, it took New Horizons nine years to reach Pluto, which is 327 light-minutes away. So we’re left to pure speculation as to what is causing the signals.

“Before we knew the distance to any FRBs, several proposed explanations for their origins said they could be coming from within or near our own Milky Way Galaxy,” said Shriharsh Tendulkar, one of the team working on the project. “We now have ruled out those explanations, at least for this FRB.”


More:
http://www.alphr.com/space/1005068/scientists-pinpoint-location-of-unexplained-space-radio-signals