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Peryton (astronomy)

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 74.134.30.21 (talk) at 03:09, 15 November 2022 (change references to the imaginary animal to say 'fictional' & 'pseudo-mythical', as the peryton is not a myth. See Talk page). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article is about the fast radio burst signal. For other uses, see Peryton (disambiguation).
A peryton event detected at the Parkes Observatory.

In radio astronomy, perytons are short man-made radio signals of a few milliseconds resembling fast radio bursts. First detected at the Parkes Observatory in 1998,[1][2] they were found to be caused by premature opening of a microwave oven door nearby.

The radio signals are named after the peryton, a pseudo-mythical winged stag that casts the shadow of a man. This name was chosen for these signals because they are man-made but have characteristics that mimick the natural phenomenon of fast radio bursts.[3]

Detection

Perytons were observed at the Parkes Observatory and Bleien Radio Observatory.[4] Between 1998 and 2015, 46 perytons were identified at the Parkes Observatory.[4] On June 23, 1998, 16 perytons were detected at that same location within 7 minutes.[4]

In 2011, a group of researchers from Australia identified 16 signals resembling man-made fast radio bursts and gave them the name peryton.[5] A peryton is a fictional animal from the Book of Imaginary Beings, by Jorge Luis Borges.[5]

In January 2015, 3 perytons were detected at the Parkes Observatory.[4] As of 2015, 25 perytons had been the subject of scientific publications.[4]

Origin hypotheses

These signals mimic some aspects of fast radio bursts (FRB) that appear to be coming from outside the Milky Way galaxy,[6][7] but their astronomical origin was soon excluded.[8][9][10] Hypothesized potential sources of perytons included:[11][12]

Identification of origin

On March 17, 2015, 3 perytons were produced by experimentation by putting ceramic mugs filled with water in a microwave oven and opening the door before it was done.[4]

In 2015, perytons were found to be the result of premature opening of microwave oven doors at the Parkes Observatory. The microwave oven releases a frequency-swept radio pulse that mimics a fast radio burst as the magnetron turns off.[13][4] Two Matsushita microwave ovens were deemed responsible for most of the perytons. Both were functional and over 27 years old.[4]

References

  1. ^ Burke-Spolaor, S.; Bailes, M.; Ekers, R.; Macquart, J.-P.; Crawford III, F. (2011). "Radio Bursts with Extragalactic Spectral Characteristics Show Terrestrial Origins". The Astrophysical Journal. 727 (1): 18. arXiv:1009.5392. Bibcode:2011ApJ...727...18B. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/727/1/18. S2CID 35469082.
  2. ^ Hall, S. (May 12, 2015). "Microwave Ovens Spark Radio Signals". Sky & Telescope. Retrieved 2015-12-25. The reason dates back 17 years, when astronomers first spotted fleeting bursts of radio signals in their data.
  3. ^ Burke-Spolaor, S.; Bailes, M.; Ekers, R.; Macquart, J.-P.; Crawford III, F. (2011). "Radio Bursts with Extragalactic Spectral Characteristics Show Terrestrial Origins". The Astrophysical Journal. 727 (1): 18. arXiv:1009.5392. Bibcode:2011ApJ...727...18B. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/727/1/18. S2CID 35469082.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Petroff, E.; Keane, E. F.; Barr, E. D.; Reynolds, J. E.; Sarkissian, J.; Edwards, P. G.; Stevens, J.; Brem, C.; Jameson, A.; Burke-Spolaor, S.; Johnston, S.; Bhat, N. D. R.; Kudale, P. C. S.; Bhandari, S. (2015). "Identifying the source of perytons at the Parkes radio telescope". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 451 (4): 3933–3940. arXiv:1504.02165. Bibcode:2015MNRAS.451.3933P. doi:10.1093/mnras/stv1242. S2CID 118525156.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  5. ^ a b Scoles, Sarah (2015-02-11). "Watching the Universe in Real Time". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2022-07-14.
  6. ^ Burke-Spolaor, S.; Bailes, M.; Ekers, R.; Macquart, J.-P.; Crawford III, F. (2011). "Radio Bursts with Extragalactic Spectral Characteristics Show Terrestrial Origins". The Astrophysical Journal. 727 (1): 18. arXiv:1009.5392. Bibcode:2011ApJ...727...18B. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/727/1/18. S2CID 35469082.
  7. ^ Bagchi, M.; Nieves, A. Cortes; McLaughlin, M. (2012). "A search for dispersed radio bursts in archival Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey data". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 425 (4): 2501–2506. arXiv:1207.2992. Bibcode:2012MNRAS.425.2501B. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21708.x. S2CID 118723247.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  8. ^ Saint-Hilaire, P.; Benz, A. O.; Monstein, C. (2014). "Short-duration Radio Bursts with Apparent Extragalactic Dispersion". The Astrophysical Journal. 795 (1): 19. arXiv:1402.0664. Bibcode:2014ApJ...795...19S. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/795/1/19. S2CID 118369831.
  9. ^ Katz, J. I. (2014). "What Perytons are not, and Might Be". The Astrophysical Journal. 788 (1): 34. arXiv:1403.0637. Bibcode:2014ApJ...788...34K. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/788/1/34. S2CID 118642445.
  10. ^ Kulkarni, S. R.; Ofek, E. O.; Neill, J. D.; Zheng, Z.; Juric, M. (2014). "Giant Sparks at Cosmological Distances?". The Astrophysical Journal. 797 (1): 70. arXiv:1402.4766. Bibcode:2014ApJ...797...70K. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/797/1/70. S2CID 34705804.
  11. ^ Bushwick, S. (April 22, 2015). "Mysterious Radio Bursts Are Indeed Coming From A Galaxy Far, Far Away". Popular Science. Retrieved 2016-05-05.
  12. ^ Danish Khan, M. (2014). "Perytons and their Possible Sources". arXiv:1404.5080 [astro-ph.HE].
  13. ^ Gilster, P. (April 6, 2015). "Puzzling Out the Perytons". Centauri Dreams. Retrieved 2015-12-25.

See also

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