The radio observatory at Parkes in New South Wales, Australia, is famous for having received and transmitting to the world the first television transmissions from the lunar surface during the flight of Apollo 11. The feat was dramatized in the late 1990s film “The Dish” (1), that starred Sam Neil, who is most famous to American audiences for his role in “Jurassic Park.”

The bulk of the work that the Parkes Radio Observatory (2) has been engaged in has been radio astronomy, picking up signals from distant stars and galaxies and gathering data about them for scientists to ponder. Since Parkes is located in the southern hemisphere, it occupies a place of considerable importance in that field of study.

Recently, Parkes picked up some signals that have proven a bit of a head scratcher for scientists. They are not, as one might think from that description, radio or TV signals from an advanced alien civilization. But they are strange, nevertheless.

Recently, as Space.Com reported (3), Parkes picked up signals from distant galaxies called “fast radio bursts.” These signals are so powerful that they travel through the universe across billions of light years. They give out more energy in that brief period than the sun does in 300,000 years.

At one time, some scientists did theorize that the fast radio bursts could have been aliens (4). However, that possibility has been ruled out in favor of a more natural cause, albeit a very strange one.

Ruling Out Natural Sources

Astronomy Now explains what happened when Parkes detected an FSB in real time (5). As it turned out, astronomers at other observatories were able to rule out a number of possible natural sources, since nothing was detected in any other wavelength such as X-rays, infrared light, visible light, or ultraviolet light.

Nothing seemed to exist at the source of the FRB that could have caused it. Scientists were able to rule out the usual catastrophic events such as exploding stars or supernovae. But then another clue presented itself.

“The Parkes detection system captured the polarization of the light. Polarization is the direction in which electromagnetic waves oscillate, and they can be linearly or circularly polarized. The signal from the radio wave burst was more than 20 percent circularly polarized, and it suggests that there is a magnetic field in the vicinity.”

The working theory is that the fast radio bursts are associated with compact objects such as black holes or neutron stars. The idea is that a starquake or even a collision caused the events to happen to be picked up by radio observatories billions of light years away. Now scientists believe they know where to look to confirm the cause of the FRBs.