Did you know that Russian billionaire Yuri Milner had teamed up with the late world renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in a bid to discover and contact extraterrestrial life? And now: “Repeated signals coming to Earth from another galaxy, scientists say”. That was a very recent headline in The Independent. Researchers have detected eight repeating blasts of energy, or fast radio bursts or FRBs, that have been picked up on Earth by telescopes wrote Andrew Griffin. “The discovery could mark a major breakthrough for researchers as they attempt to discover the source of the mysterious signals.” That source could be surprisingly close. The researchers suggest that one of the bursts could be coming from a galaxy that neighbours our own Milky Way.

The new data comes from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, a telescope that scientists had hoped would shed new light on FRBs. Now it has done so, with the discovery of eight more that have been described in a new paper published on Arxiv. To try and understand their source, scientists have searched for more bursts and looked to understand them in better detail when they come. Repeating bursts are likely to be the key to that, since they can be examined with so much more clarity.

In addition to the two confirmed bursts, other researchers have reported two more that are yet to be published in peer-reviewed journals. The new discovery could lead to much more detailed research on where they are coming from. Obviously, whether ghosts exist or not, whether the paranormal, the supernatural are realities or not, whether other worlds exist or not aren’t the only questions that refuse to die. Whether aliens exist or not is also an enduring question that has been popping up with unfailing regularity, exciting fascinated curiosity all over the world. As with the other questions, this curiosity about aliens is age old.

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