天文學(xué)家探測到史上最接近星系的空間信號

天文學(xué)家探測到史上最接近星系的空間信號

Fast Radio Bursts, or FRBs for short, are something of an anomaly for astronomers. We’ve been able to detect these powerful blasts of radio energy from distant locations in space, but nobody really knows for sure what causes them. FRBs are often one-hit wonders, appearing in an instant and then never are heard from again.

對天文學(xué)家來說，快速射電暴(簡稱FRB)是一種異常現(xiàn)象。我們已經(jīng)能夠探測到這些來自遙遠(yuǎn)空間的強大的無線電能量爆炸，但是沒有人確切地知道是什么引起的。FRB經(jīng)常是曇花一現(xiàn)的奇跡，出現(xiàn)在一瞬間，然后再也沒有音訊。

One FRB in particular labeled FRB 121102, is famous for repeatedly showing up and researchers have been studying it for some time. Now, a new repeating FRB has appeared on scientists’ radars and it’s coming from a source that’s not all that far away from our own galaxy.

一種被稱為FRB 121102的特殊FRB，因其反復(fù)出現(xiàn)而出名，研究人員對其進行了一段時間的研究。現(xiàn)在，一個新的重復(fù)FRB出現(xiàn)在科學(xué)家的雷達上，它來自一個離我們的星系不遠(yuǎn)的地方。

The new repeating FRB is known as 180916.J0158+65. It’s been traced to a galaxy that sits roughly half a billion light-years from Earth. That certainly sounds like a huge distance, but it’s actually only a fraction of the distance that other FRBs have been traced to, which makes it potentially exciting from a research perspective.

新的重復(fù)FRB被稱為180916.J0158+65。它被追溯到一個距離地球約5億光年的星系。這聽起來當(dāng)然像是一個遙遠(yuǎn)的距離，但實際上這只是其他FRB被追蹤到的距離的一小部分，從研究的角度來看，這可能是令人興奮的。

Its discovery is the subject of a new paper published in Nature.

它的發(fā)現(xiàn)是發(fā)表在《自然》雜志上的一篇新論文的主題。

“The FRB is among the closest yet seen and we even speculated that it could be a more conventional object in the outskirts of our own galaxy,” Mohit Bhardwaj, co-author of the work, said in a statement. “However, the observation proved that it’s in a relatively nearby galaxy, making it still a puzzling FRB but close enough to now study using many other telescopes.”

該研究的合著者Mohit Bhardwaj在一份聲明中說:“FRB是我們所見過的距離最近的天體之一，我們甚至推測它可能是我們銀河系外圍的一個更傳統(tǒng)的天體。”“然而，觀測結(jié)果證明它在一個相對較近的星系中，這使它仍然是一個令人困惑的FRB，但現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)足夠近，可以用其他望遠(yuǎn)鏡進行研究了。”