Astronomers studying fast radio bursts recently discovered one that repeats, has a persistent radio signal and originated in a galaxy much closer than it should have.
A mysterious repeating signal from our galactic backyard is a reminder the universe is full of unexpected surprises, if only we should look.
An artist’s impression of the Double Pulsar system in which the two pulsars orbit each other every 2.5 hours and send out high-energy beams that sweep across the sky.
Image credit: John Rowe Animations/CSIRO
After six decades during which it tracked lunar missions, spotted distant pulsars and quasars, and even expanded our concept of the size of the Universe, the Parkes telescope is still going strong.
Fluctuating radio waves that appear to come from near the heart of the Milky Way are a new puzzle for astronomers.
MeerKAT, the precursor to the massive Square Kilometre Array, allows astronomers to gather huge amounts of data about galaxies.
Photo by Jaco Marais/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images
Australia’s ASKAP radio telescope probes the Universe more deeply than ever before, revealing unseen features of the cosmos.
Some of the dishes that make up the Square Kilometre Array’s radio telescope system. This kind of “blue skies” research can have great real-world value.
MUJAHID SAFODIEN/AFP via Getty Images
Vanessa McBride, International Astronomical Union's Office of Astronomy for Development
The pandemic has underscored that the world requires agility for survival. That makes blue skies science, which encourages curiosity and nimble thinking, perhaps more important than ever.
Australian astronomers are part of a prize-winning team that was the first to pinpoint the location of a fast radio burst. But there is much we still don’t know about these mysterious bursts.
The two giant radio galaxies found with the MeerKAT telescope. In the background is the sky as seen in optical light. Overlaid in red is the radio light from the enormous radio galaxies, as seen by MeerKAT.
I. Heywood (Oxford/Rhodes/SARAO)
Based on what we currently know about the density of giant radio galaxies in the sky, the probability of finding two of them in this region is extremely small.