<
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/oct/08/matthew-bailes-fast-radio-bursts-australian-astrophysicists-pm-science-prize-winner>
"When Prof Matthew Bailes and his collaborators discovered a mysterious flash
from a galaxy far, far away, he thought it was “too good to be true”.
It was 2007, and the scientists had come across an “absurdly, insanely bright
burst of radio waves” that had hit the Murriyang telescope at the CSIRO Parkes
Observatory. The source, they figured, had to be a trillion times brighter than
anything in our galaxy, the Milky Way.
“I remember trying to go to sleep that night and really struggling,” Bailes
recalled. “I thought: if this is real, this could be absolutely huge.”
The team had discovered the first fast radio burst (FRB), an intense burst of
radio waves that can emit as much energy in milliseconds as the sun does in
months or even years.
The discovery of FRBs saw Bailes, an astrophysicist at the Swinburne University
of Technology, awarded the top honour at the prime minister’s prizes for
science on Tuesday evening. Bailes described the $250,000 gong as “a nice
surprise”.
The discovery of FRBs led to a new branch of astrophysics research, with more
than 10,000 detected since 2007. FRBs allow scientists to count the number of
atoms in the universe, determining how much normal matter exists, Bailes said."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
