Scientists have discovered a radio signal that beats like a heart in an unknown galaxy billions of light years from Earth.

The pulses from its source are a million times brighter than similar stars in our own galaxy and last 1,000 times longer than average.

Researchers say the signal, which is a type of fast radio burst, appears to be flashing with surprising regularity.

However the source of the burst, which was observed from Canada, remains a mystery.

Fast radio bursts come from an unknown place in space but tend to last only a few milliseconds at most. However, this one lasts for up to three seconds.

The team detected bursts of radio waves that repeat every 0.2 seconds in a pattern similar to that of a beating heart. So far it is the longest-lasting fast radio burst and beats clearer than any other.

The team believes it could be from either a radio pulsar or a magnetar, both of which are types of neutron stars – extremely dense, rapidly spinning, collapsed cores of giant stars.

The first fast radio burst was discovered in 2007 and hundreds of similar flashes have been detected across the universe since.

Between 2018 and 2020 scientists discovered the first fast radio bursts that seemed to emit radio waves in a regular pattern.

This signal consisted of a four-day window of random bursts that then repeated every 16 days. The new discovery was picked up by a telescope in British Columbia, Canada on 21 December 2019.

What are radio pulsars?

Radio pulsars are neutron stars that emit beams of radio waves, appearing to pulse as the star rotates. A similar emission is produced by magnetars due to their extreme magnetic fields.

The telescope, which is part of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) was being manned by Dr Daniele Michilli when the mysterious signal appeared.

‘It was unusual. Not only was it very long, lasting about three seconds, but there were periodic peaks that were remarkably precise, emitting every fraction of a second – boom, boom, boom – like a heartbeat,’ said Dr Michilli who thinks the flashes might be coming from a distant radio pulsar or magnetar.

‘CHIME has now detected many fast radio bursts with different properties. We have seen some that live inside clouds that are very turbulent, while others look like they are in clean environments,’

‘From the properties of this new signal, we can say that around this source, there is a cloud of plasma that must be extremely turbulent,’

The team hopes to catch the bizarre burst again in the future so they can understand more about where it comes from and neutron stars in general. They also believe the signals could be used to measure the rate at which the universe is expanding.

‘Future telescopes promise to discover thousands of fast radio bursts a month, and at that point we may find many more of these periodic signals,’ said Dr Michilli.

The findings have been published in the journal Nature.

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