The mysterious fast radio bursts in space keep getting stranger, and I keep getting more interested. Perhaps it’s just the conspiracy theorist in me that wants to believe that aliens are trying to contact us, but if that turns out to be true I want it to be recorded that I welcomed our new alien overlords with open arms (and I’d love a role in their new figurehead government overseeing all Earthlings, but we can negotiate that later).
I won’t try to explain to you the science behind the observation of fast radio bursts, but I will tell you that everytime scientists think they figure something out they are left with even more questions, so that sounds like a depressing career if you ask me.
What are fast radio bursts, and where do they come from? I’m not going to answer that, because I have no idea, but some scientists think that “fast radio bursts may originate from magnetars, the powerfully magnetized cores of dead stars. But other research has suggested that collisions between dense neutron stars or dead stars called white dwarfs may be the cause.”
Who’s right? I’ll let the aliens sending out those signals settle that debate once-and-for-all.