These Bizarre Deep-Space Radio Blasts Have Astronomers Baffled

Maybe it's UFO's....

I wish they would say what the frequencies are?

Evidently these spikes were detected across a spectrum of 7 frequency probes....

"Figure 1: The signal from FRB121102- the big top plot shows the signal in time and frequency (showing its dispersion measure), while the lower plots show the signal to noise ratio with respect to time (left) and frequency (right). The FRB's properties are the same as those detected previously at Parkes.

Today's paper is a vindication for the radio astronomers who insisted FRBs are astronomical in nature: it reports on the first-ever FRB detection by a telescope other than Parkes! Specifically, this FRB was detected at Arecibo Observatory by the Pulsar ALFA Survey, which surveyed the galactic plane at 1.4 GHz in order to detect single pulses from pulsars. Known as FRB 121102, the pulse was observed in November 2012 in one of 7 beams in the receiver ALFA uses, lasted about 3 ms, and came from the direction of the galactic plane. Despite this, astronomers think it's likely the pulse originated from outside the galaxy based on its dispersion measure, or how much the signal's frequency is "smeared" due to traveling through space (as explained well in this Astrobite, signals arrive later in lower frequencies when traveling long distances, giving an estimate on how far away the signal originated). This FRB's dispersion measure was three times greater than the maximum galactic dispersion measure expected in the line of sight from which the FRB was observed,based on the distribution of matter in that part of the galaxy. While the authors suggest the pulses might be from a rotating radio transient- a special kind of pulsar- no other pulses were detected in follow-up observations so the signal is probably not just an unusually bright pulse from a pulsar.

http://astrobites.org/2014/04/18/arecibo-detects-a-fast-radio-burst/

Thanks! Now to see if I have something that can receive in that range.

From your quote: " This FRB's dispersion measure was three times greater than the maximum galactic dispersion measure expected in the line of sight from which the FRB was observed." I wonder what distance was expected from that direction?

Well I would say that it was expected from our own galactic plane, since that's where they were aiming....

From the abstract: "... FRB 121102, the first FRB discovery from a geographic location other than Parkes. FRB 121102 was found in the Galactic anti-center region in the 1.4 GHz Pulsar Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFA) survey with the Arecibo Observatory with a DM = 557.4 ± 2.0 pc cm-3, pulse width of 3.0 ± 0.5 ms, and no evidence of interstellar scattering."