Recently, the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), known as the "China Tianyan", discovered a new source of fast radio bursts from deep in the universe, according to the Science and Technology Daily.
A fast radio burst is a mysterious phenomenon that lasts only a few milliseconds.
Most of the fast radio storms observed in the past were one-off, where the number of photons picked up by the telescope at a certain point in time suddenly and dramatically increased as if the sky were suddenly brightening and rapidly dimming.
Only a very small number of these are rapid radio bursts with repeated bursts, which tend to flash two or three times in a row, or more.
It has been estimated that the impulse signal may have traveled through the universe for about 10 billion years.
Zhu Weiwei, a researcher at the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the discovery of the new source alone flashed three times in a row, at an interval of about 5 milliseconds.
He claimed that the first burst had the highest energy, and the last two bursts were roughly equal but much "darker" than the first.
"China Tianyan is expected to officially launch its search for extraterrestrial civilizations in September, looking for signals of highly intelligent life from deep within the universe.
Searching for and monitoring radio pulsars is a core scientific goal of FAST. The search for extraterrestrial civilizations is also one of the scientific goals of the FAST telescope.
"China Tianyan" was conceived by Chinese astronomer Nanren Dong in 1994 and took 22 years to build and was inaugurated on 25 September 2016.
It is led by the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and is the world's largest single-caliber, most sensitive radio telescope.
On 11 January 2020, "China Tianyan" was officially opened for operation.
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