Mysterious radio signal detected from a distant galaxy

Astronomers have detected an unusual radio signal from a far-off galaxy, according to MIT officials.

The signal is a fast radio burst, an intensely strong burst of radio waves, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in a statement. Usually, the mysterious signals last for a few milliseconds at most. But this one lasted up to three seconds and included bursts of radio waves every 0.2 seconds, in a clear periodic pattern.

The discovery was reported last week in the journal Nature by members of the CHIME/FRB Collaboration.

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, or CHIME, is a radio telescope in British Columbia, Canada. CHIME is designed to pick up radio waves emitted by hydrogen in the earliest stages of the universe. It also can detect fast radio bursts, or FRBs, and it has found hundreds of them, MIT said.

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