ikon Credit : David McClenaghan , CSIRO viaWikimedia Commons//CC BY 3.0
Sometimes , a rogue radiocommunication sign detected by astronomers is the result ofaliens trying to make contactwith Earth . Other time , it ’s just a coworker trying to heat up up her lunch .
This is what a mathematical group of researchers working at theCSIRO Parkes Observatoryin Australia discovered after more than 15 year of studyingfast wireless bursts — intermittent pulses of tuner undulation from place that only last a few second — using the facility ’s 200 - base - wide wireless telescope . Every once in a while , an errant signaling would be notice , throwing a wrench in the team ’s data .
In a newpaper , the lab group describes “ perytons , ” transient signal that look similar to the astrophysical pulses as detected through frigid plasma . Mysteriously , these signals normally seemed to be picked up around lunchtime . Sadly , these were n’t coming from stranger hoping to break sugar with us . The wireless pulse rate were generate by the microwave in the staff kitchen .
In the scientist ’ words :
There were three microwave oven ovens near the telescope , plus another two microwaves housed half a mile aside . Even as these astronomers guide tests hunting for the source of their mysterious radio wave , scalawag microwaving get in the way . The researcher heated a cupful of water in the microwave oven in the tower beneath the telescope while it was running , and were surprised to detect a single peryton . “ The detection of radiotherapy from the tower microwave oven would be very surprising as the tower is shielded on the window and in the walls and the dish surface blocks the line of sight to the receiver in the cabin at the prime focus , ” they spell . They later bring out that someone else was using the microwave in the staff kitchen at the time . In a later trial , they opened the same microwave oven before it finished its heating cycle , grow three perytons . The scientists succeed in create these errant signals with their microwaves about 50 per centum of the time .
On the bright side , the researchers were able to document notable difference between these emphatically planetary perytons and the supposedly cosmic fast radio bursts , giving them reasonableness to believe that the FRBs are genuine astrophysical signals , not just the sign of someone ’s ramen being quick . Still , astronomers working at Parkes may be eating insensate lunches for a while .
[ h / t : Nature ]
