Radio telescope picks up new frequency in space

(Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Handout via REUTERS)

Canada’s new radio telescope has picked up a mysterious signal from deep in space with a frequency so low, it’s never been detected before.

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment – or CHIME – detected the strange noise known as a fast radio burst on July 25, BGR.com reported.

FRBs are frequently picked up on radio telescopes though their exact origins aren’t fully understood.

This most recent one, named FRB 180725A, is notable because of its low frequency of 580 megahertz. Before it, there has never been an FRB picked up below 700 MHz.

It’s likely that FRBs come from turbulent black hole activity, such as when two black holes merge into one.

CHIME is located in British Columbia and its FRB from last month was reported in a post by the Astronomer’s Telegram.

One FRB, FRB 121102, has been detected several times before – and researchers believe its origin is in a galaxy some three billion light years from Earth, meaning it’d have to be extremely powerful to be picked up on a telescope.

This story originally appeared in the New York Post.