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A mysterious radio burst that keeps repeating

78 points| wglb | 5 years ago |sciencealert.com

60 comments

order
[+] m3kw9|5 years ago|reply
“ within those milliseconds, they can discharge as much power as hundreds of millions of Suns.”

Didn’t know that

[+] sidcool|5 years ago|reply
That is mind blowing. Our brains cannot comprehend the enormity of it.
[+] muthdra|5 years ago|reply
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?
[+] scns|5 years ago|reply
Sounds like a Gamma Ray
[+] xutopia|5 years ago|reply
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!
[+] yencabulator|5 years ago|reply
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.

[+] aspyct|5 years ago|reply
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.

[+] pastrami_panda|5 years ago|reply
Is there a term for this terrible practice? Should be similar to scrolljacking, but backjacking feels weird... perhaps navjacking?
[+] amelius|5 years ago|reply
This comment would be better if it actually prevented me from viewing the article. But it starts with "the article was nice", which accomplishes the opposite.
[+] i386|5 years ago|reply
I dislike that comments like this are the top voted comment rather than something insightful about the article’s content itself.
[+] dunefox|5 years ago|reply
Install a script blocker.
[+] _nalply|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] Florin_Andrei|5 years ago|reply
Magnetar orbiting a black hole or something.
[+] valuearb|5 years ago|reply
And we know it’s a 157 day orbit.
[+] scns|5 years ago|reply
Did you mean a Pulsar?
[+] avmich|5 years ago|reply
Reminds Stanislaw Lem's His Master's Voice.
[+] TedDoesntTalk|5 years ago|reply
I’ve been reading Lem’s work lately but haven’t gotten to this one. Do you recommend it?
[+] signa11|5 years ago|reply
yup. what a lovely and hugely thought provoking book. specifically on the nature of cognition, and our need to impose order / structure on unknown. which ultimately, is a reflection on ourselves...