Mysterious Galactic Signals

One, Maybe Two, More Mysterious Radio Bursts from Galactic Center

© 2006 by Linda Moulton Howe

Radio image of the central region of our Milky Way Galaxy.
The white arrow points at the SNR 359.1-00.5 region where intense radio bursts
repeated five times spaced 77 minutes apart on the night of September 30, 2002,
to October 1, 2002. Image courtesy Northwestern University.

Date: Night of September 30 to October 1, 2002.
Radio Wave Size: About 1 meter in wavelength.
Number of Bursts: Five bursts over 7-hour period.
Name Assigned 5 Radio Bursts: "GCRT J1745-3009"
Length of Each Burst: 10 minutes duration and each radio burst
separated by about 77 minutes of silence. Rise time in intensity was
about 8 minutes, slower than decay time which was about two minutes.
Estimated Location: As far as 24,000 light-years, or as close as 300 light-years,
toward center of Milky Way galaxy and region of red supernova
remnant known as "SNR 359.1-00.5."

October 23, 2006 Sweet Briar, Virginia - A year and a half ago in early March 2005, I reported at Earthfiles about a physicist’s report in Nature concerning a powerful and repeating burst of radio waves toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy in a region known as SNR 359.1-00.5. The galactic center is 26,000 light-years from Earth and is full of stars. There were five radio bursts in 1-meter-long radio wavelengths of 330 MegaHertz detected over a 7 hour period on the night of September 30 to October 1, 2002. The five radio bursts were equally spaced apart by 77 minutes and there were no detectable x-ray emissions. No one studying our galaxy has ever seen any radio bursts like that before. The source is a complete mystery.

The SNR 359.1-00.5 region is enlarged on the left and the yellow spot
indicates the location of the 5 strong, repeating radio bursts in the 1-meter-long
wavelength recorded on September 30 to October 1, 2002. Name given
to unknown source: "GCRT J1745-3009." Graphic overlay
courtesy Sweet Briar College Physics Department.

Another Radio Burst September 28, 2003

Now, this year on March 1, 2006, the same science team published in The Astrophysical Journal new data about another similar radio burst detected on September 28, 2003. That was a single burst luckily caught in a short 10-minute observation. No one knows if there were other bursts before and after the one detected from Earth. The 2003 single radio burst was approximately three times weaker than the five radio bursts in 2002. Still, no one knows what the source of such similar radio bursts toward the center of our galaxy could be, while a possible third radio burst is being analyzed from 2004 data.

The lead scientist monitoring the Milky Way Galaxy center is Scott Hyman, Ph.D., Professor of Physics in the Dept. of Physics and Engineering at Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia. He began his research a few years ago at the request of a colleague at the Naval Research Laboratory. Why the Navy would want to investigate radio signals in the galactic core is not known. But the strong, repeating radio bursts on regular intervals without x- ray emissions (X-rays are found in some natural cosmic emitters) provokes at least a question: could the source be another cosmic civilization? I recently talked with Prof. Hyman about that question and what more he has learned about the powerful, repeating long wave radio bursts.

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Interview:

Scott Hyman, Ph.D., Prof. of Physics, Dept. of Physics and Engineering, Sweet Briar College, Sweet Briar, Virginia: "It’s still an enigma...