A mysterious and powerful burst of radio waves reached Earth after traveling through space for 8 billion years dubbed FRB 20220610A.
  • 0x0
    17·
    2 months ago

    How do they date a radio transmission?

      • NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.world
        3·
        2 months ago

        You can’t use triangulation for anything over a few light-years, the angles are just too acute. And even then, you need to use the full width of Earth’s orbit (i.e. repeat a measurement at different times of the year).

        I think they just know what the frequency distribution normally is for a burst like this when it is emitted, and use the redshift of the measured frequencies to estimate the distance. Plus they correlate it with the apparent source based on direction (a certain galaxy, in this case, which helped confirm the distance estimate).

        • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
          1·
          2 months ago

          The triangulation would mostly be for direction in this case, yeah. Unless we happened to have a radio telescope pointed at the right region of the sky at the time.

    • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
      121·
      2 months ago

      It’s tricky, since it’s moving at the speed of light, but I still find an icebreaker followed up by an invitation to a low-stakes social engagement to be the best way to proceed /s

  • roger_smith@lemmy.myserv.one
    2·
    2 months ago

    That’s pretty wild, isn’t it? Imagine how different everything was 8 billion years ago when that signal first set off. It makes me think about how vast and mysterious the universe is. The signal traveled all that distance, crossing time and space, and finally, it shows up here—just when we have the tech to catch it. Kind of makes you feel like Earth’s in a cosmic relay race, passing the baton between generations of galactic explorers. Who knows? Maybe there’s some alien podcast out there that finally reached its audience!