Science

Out of context: Reply #477

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  • ukit21

    A gigantic but fleeting burst of radio waves has been caught in the act for the first time, helping to narrow down the vast array of things that might cause them. Figuring out what these fast radio bursts – sometimes called blitzars – are or where they come from could help answer some of the biggest cosmological questions.

    Blitzars last about a millisecond but give off as much energy as the sun does in a million years, all seemingly in a tight band of radio-frequency waves.

    Their source is a mystery, but whatever causes them must be huge, cataclysmic and up to 5.5 billion light years away, says Emily Petroff of Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia.

    http://www.newscientist.com/arti…

    ukit2 1Permalink
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    • yaay, another thing to pop into mind in the late late of night whilst I lie awake, staring at the ceilingdetritus
    • haha, there's a correction - Blitzars unleash the same amount of energy as the sun does in a DAY, not 1M years :)detritus
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      NIGHTMARES      detritus
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