dreds of bursts.

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And no one has a clear answer why.

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00:00:53,650 --> 00:00:55,410
What is actually giving rise

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00:00:55,410 --> 00:00:57,683
to these very powerful flashes?

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00:00:59,130 --> 00:01:01,570
There's always a danger, well, maybe this is actually ET.

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We gotta make sure we're doing the right thing here.

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00:01:04,140 --> 00:01:05,760
To solve this mystery,

22
00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:07,440
scientists will search for clues

23
00:01:07,440 --> 00:01:09,860
billions of light years from home.

24
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Then come face to face with one of the strangest

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most violent phenomena in the known universe.

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If you get close enough, it will actually start

27
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to elongate the molecules,

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00:01:20,460 --> 00:01:22,660
and it would rip the water out of your body.

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(birds chirping)

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00:01:34,600 --> 00:01:36,750
The small towns of West Virginia's Highlands

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are some of the most isolated in America.

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But today, one of them finds itself

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00:01:42,570 --> 00:01:45,370
in the center of a cosmic mystery.

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All because of this, the Green Bank Telescope.

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One of the largest movable objects on dry earth.

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00:01:56,720 --> 00:01:59,420
The structure here stands almost

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00:01:59,420 --> 00:02:02,800
485 feet above ground level.

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00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:05,913
It's actually taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza.

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These huge wheels, five-foot diameter steel wheels,

40
00:02:11,690 --> 00:02:14,750
are the support structure and actually roll

41
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on this track system.

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00:02:16,990 --> 00:02:21,570
This structure weighs almost 17 million pounds.

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So each one of these 16 wheels carries

44
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more than a million pounds.

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And the GBT is more

46
00:02:29,330 --> 00:02:31,573
than just strong, it's agile.

47
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We can see more of the celestial sphere

48
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here in Green Bank than can be seen

49
00:02:37,560 --> 00:02:41,000
from any single telescope anywhere else in the world.

50
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We can see 85% of the celestial sphere

51
00:02:45,410 --> 00:02:47,623
from this point right here.

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00:02:50,144 --> 00:02:51,870
And the view from Green Bank has changed

53
00:02:51,870 --> 00:02:54,770
our understanding of the planets, the stars,

54
00:02:54,770 --> 00:02:57,170
and other cosmic phenomena.

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And from this remote place,

56
00:02:59,160 --> 00:03:02,750
Dr. Frank Drake pioneered the field known as SETI,

57
00:03:02,750 --> 00:03:05,380
the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,

58
00:03:05,380 --> 00:03:08,463
using the first telescope built at this observatory.

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He developed a formula known as the Drake Equation.

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To estimate the number of intelligent civilizations

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occupying our known universe today.

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Some have calculated that number

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to be well into the millions.

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Astronomers are now searching these same skies

65
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for clues to help solve a new mystery,

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the source of a string of unidentified signals

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they call fast radio bursts.

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They will do so by scanning the cosmos for radio waves.

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Radio telescope is like any other telescope.

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It collects radiation from the sky.

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You're more familiar probably with an optical telescope,

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which collects light waves at visible wavelengths.

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Well, radio waves are the same kind of thing.

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They're just longer, bigger.

75
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Sometimes I call it tired light.

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And the radio waves being detected

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by the GBT are so faint that even the slightest

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electronic interference would drown out the signals

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collected by its 100-meter dish.

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A single cellphone on standby, not even talking on it,

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but just on standby waiting on a signal,

82
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placed on Mars would completely overwhelm anything

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00:04:35,460 --> 00:04:37,083
the astronomer is looking for.

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Engineers have the daily challenge

85
00:04:40,430 --> 00:04:43,150
of shielding the telescope from the electronic noise

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00:04:43,150 --> 00:04:46,423
bombarding it from space and closer to home.

87
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The instruments in the telescope's receiver

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are kept below minus 300 degrees fahrenheit,

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bringing molecular motion to a near halt.

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The GBT's control room is sealed in copper,

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preventing any manmade signals from leaking out.

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Even life in and around Green Bank is dictated

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by the needs of the telescope.

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We don't have cell service here.

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There is no Wi-Fi; it's prohibited completely.

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Television is a little tricky.

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And the few microwave ovens permitted

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on campus have been encased in metal shielding.

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You sort of live like people lived in the '50s.

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The enforced silence around the telescope

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allows it to detect signals that few others can.

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(dramatic music)

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00:05:54,440 --> 00:05:56,800
45 years into its journey,

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the Voyager Spacecraft has left the solar system.

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It's more than 11 billion miles from Earth,

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beyond the reach of our sun,

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a faint beacon is its only connection to its home planet.

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And it's emitting a radio signal which has the equivalent

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energy of about a 20- or 25-watt light bulb.

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Astronomers at the Green Bank Telescope

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make an attempt to track Voyager down.

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(dramatic music)

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They find it in a matter of seconds.

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We can pick that signal up with the GBT.

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It's actually a really bright signal.

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No problem at all.

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The signals that we're detecting

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from fast radio bursts are even weaker than that.

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(dramatic music)

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When fast radio bursts erupt,

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they can unleash as much energy as our sun does

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in an entire year in a fraction of a second.

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But by the time that energy reaches Earth,

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it's a mere whisper.

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And while astronomers have now detected dozens

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of different fast radio bursts,

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one of them is different from the rest,

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and they're determined to find out why.

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They call it FRB 121102.

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The source of that signal now enters

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the GBT's field of view.

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From the telescope's control room one mile away

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Dr. Ryan Lynch directs the telescope

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to lock in on the target.

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So the GBT sees a very small portion

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in the sky at any given time,

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so we have to be able to control where

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it's pointing very, very precisely.

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So if you think about a really little tiny crater

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or mark on the moon that you might be able

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to see with your naked eye,

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that's basically the amount of sky

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that we're seeing right now.

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And there's an even greater challenge

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to observing 121102.

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We don't know when it's going to actually emit a burst.

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And the bursts only last for a fraction of a second,

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only a few milliseconds.

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So we have spent many tens, probably hundreds of hours

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on the GBT over the course of the last few years

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observing this object,

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and hundreds of hours on other telescopes.

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And we've only detected a few hundred bursts.

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And if you would add all of those bursts up,

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they would only add up to a few seconds' worth of time

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when the source is actually active.

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Like most observations,

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this one comes up empty.

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This is such an interesting object

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and it's such a big mystery in radio astronomy right now

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that it's worth spending all of that time.

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The Green Bank team's search for answers is

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about to get a major boost.

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They're partners with Breakthrough Listen.

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The world's largest SETI project have made

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a major investment in the telescope's computing system.

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If you have a laptop with a one terabyte hard drive,

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this represents about 4000 of those.

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Dave MacMahon has installed enough new hardware

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to effectively double the observing power of the GBT.

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So it's kind of like we got a big upgrade

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to our cable box; we went from standard to deluxe package.

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We're open for business.

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The team hopes this upgrade will help them

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build on the few seconds' worth of data captured

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on FRB 121102 so far.

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A few seconds that have set off a series of discoveries

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and made this one of the hottest topics

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in astronomy today.

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When FRB-121102 was first discovered,

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everything got thrown into overdrive.

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We knew it was special almost right away

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because no other FRB event has been seen to repeat.

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They realized they're dealing

185
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with a one-of-a-kind phenomenon.

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And because this one signal repeats,

187
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they knew they could tease more information out of it.

188
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It's kind of like if you're in the woods

189
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and a bird chirps and you hear it one time,

190
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you're like, wait, what was that bird?

191
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I heard it but I couldn't quite figure out what it was.

192
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And if you hear a few more chirps of the bird,

193
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then you might be, okay, I now I know what this is.

194
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It's a robin.

195
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They could now track the location of the signal

196
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to the Constellation of Auriga.

197
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Once we were able to localize 121102,

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we realized that this galaxy has never been seen before.

199
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Sometimes I try to think about the incredible scale

200
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of all the distant objects that we're listening to

201
00:10:39,340 --> 00:10:41,023
and it boggles the mind.

202
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They now knew where

203
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FRB 121102 was coming from.

204
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But they still didn't know what was generating the signal.

205
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But each subsequent flash of energy helped them

206
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narrow down their list of suspects.

207
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When fast radio bursts were first discovered,

208
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they were all one-off events.

209
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And so a lot of the early theories focused

210
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on catastrophic events that would destroy

211
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whatever was actually causing the fast radio bursts.

212
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That could be things like an exploding star or supernova.

213
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It was a huge explosion.

214
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Maybe two neutron stars colliding.

215
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So when we start to see it repeat,

216
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that changes our whole paradigm of what it could be.

217
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And it is still the only known

218
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fast radio burst that repeats.

219
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And that makes it an especially big mystery.

220
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Once astronomers discovered

221
00:11:32,630 --> 00:11:34,990
that this wasn't a one-and-done phenomena,

222
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they had to find a celestial body

223
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that could expel bursts of radio waves

224
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without destroying itself.

225
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They began to suspect that the signal

226
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could be coming from a pulsar.

227
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Pulsars are dead stars that emit radio waves

228
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so predictably that NASA has discussed using them

229
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as cosmic beacons, guiding future space missions.

230
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But the strength of 121102's signal is

231
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far beyond the typical pulsar's.

232
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And there's something else about these bursts

233
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that puzzles astronomers.

234
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You might think to yourself

235
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that with all of those bursts

236
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we would be able to find some sort of a pattern

237
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or a regularity in when they're going off.

238
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But we've looked really hard

239
00:12:18,210 --> 00:12:21,380
and we haven't been able to find anything like that yet.

240
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Because astronomers haven't been able

241
00:12:22,940 --> 00:12:25,000
to uncover a pattern to 121102's

242
00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:27,370
seemingly random burst cycle,

243
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they've had to search beyond pulsars for an explanation.

244
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Continuing the work begun here by Frank Drake

245
00:12:35,700 --> 00:12:37,780
more than 50 years ago,

246
00:12:37,780 --> 00:12:40,390
the astronomers from Breakthrough Listen wonder

247
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if signals like these could conceal a message

248
00:12:43,090 --> 00:12:44,633
from a distant civilization.

249
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Anytime there's a new astrophysical phenomenon

250
00:12:49,320 --> 00:12:52,938
discovered, I think aliens are one of the explanations

251
00:12:52,938 --> 00:12:56,273
for it that people put on a list.

252
00:12:57,660 --> 00:13:00,190
In space, radio waves can be created

253
00:13:00,190 --> 00:13:03,533
by natural cosmic events, but they're rare.

254
00:13:04,650 --> 00:13:06,380
On Earth, we've learned that they can

255
00:13:06,380 --> 00:13:10,403
be created artificially by intelligent species, like us.

256
00:13:12,710 --> 00:13:16,600
The energy emitted by 121102 is staggering,

257
00:13:16,600 --> 00:13:18,943
equivalent to 500 million suns,

258
00:13:19,910 --> 00:13:21,823
far beyond human capacity.

259
00:13:22,740 --> 00:13:24,510
But the scale of that explosive power

260
00:13:24,510 --> 00:13:26,763
does not concern SETI's astronomers.

261
00:13:28,090 --> 00:13:30,480
Part of our assumptions in the SETI field

262
00:13:30,480 --> 00:13:33,350
is that we are just getting into radio technology.

263
00:13:33,350 --> 00:13:35,240
We've only had it for 100 years.

264
00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:38,512
And other civilizations could be far more

265
00:13:38,512 --> 00:13:40,710
developed than we are.

266
00:13:40,710 --> 00:13:42,900
I don't think that there's some fundamental limit

267
00:13:42,900 --> 00:13:45,610
to how strong a signal some intelligence

268
00:13:45,610 --> 00:13:47,160
could create if they wanted to.

269
00:13:51,340 --> 00:13:53,120
The question for astronomers then

270
00:13:53,120 --> 00:13:56,090
is not just why this signal is so strong,

271
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but whether it carries any information.

272
00:13:59,550 --> 00:14:01,489
When one gets a radio signal from outer space

273
00:14:01,489 --> 00:14:05,200
you automatically start to think about extraterrestrials.

274
00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:07,550
While we can't rule out all FRB sources,

275
00:14:07,550 --> 00:14:08,690
we're pretty confident that

276
00:14:08,690 --> 00:14:12,453
FRB 121102 is not an ET source.

277
00:14:13,370 --> 00:14:15,790
With ET signals, one would expect a lot of information

278
00:14:15,790 --> 00:14:18,540
to be encoded into that signal.

279
00:14:18,540 --> 00:14:19,820
And all the information that we're getting

280
00:14:19,820 --> 00:14:22,710
from this burst has a natural explanation.

281
00:14:22,710 --> 00:14:24,710
To demonstrate what an encoded message

282
00:14:24,710 --> 00:14:26,850
could look and sound like,

283
00:14:26,850 --> 00:14:29,253
Andrew Seymour has created one from scratch.

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00:14:30,270 --> 00:14:31,700
Each pixel in this image of the

285
00:14:31,700 --> 00:14:34,270
Green Bank Observatory's logo corresponds

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00:14:34,270 --> 00:14:36,283
to a different frequency and time.

287
00:14:37,340 --> 00:14:40,503
Think about them like a series of notes on a sheet of music.

288
00:14:41,920 --> 00:14:44,700
Here, instead of having seven or 12 notes

289
00:14:44,700 --> 00:14:46,530
that we may have on other instruments,

290
00:14:46,530 --> 00:14:49,850
we have over 1000 notes being played here.

291
00:14:49,850 --> 00:14:51,590
When all of those notes are played together

292
00:14:51,590 --> 00:14:54,308
we see and hear this.

293
00:14:54,308 --> 00:14:57,641
(electronic screeching)

294
00:14:59,060 --> 00:15:02,440
And if we were to broadcast those frequencies into space.

295
00:15:02,440 --> 00:15:04,306
If another civilization was recording

296
00:15:04,306 --> 00:15:06,460
with computers the same way we are,

297
00:15:06,460 --> 00:15:07,650
they would see this image come

298
00:15:07,650 --> 00:15:09,150
across their computer screens.

299
00:15:10,698 --> 00:15:14,031
(electronic screeching)

300
00:15:16,400 --> 00:15:17,990
But when Andrew analyzed this signal

301
00:15:17,990 --> 00:15:20,619
from one of FRB 121102's bursts,

302
00:15:20,619 --> 00:15:22,963
he discovered something very different.

303
00:15:25,026 --> 00:15:28,600
(electronic screeching)

304
00:15:28,600 --> 00:15:30,710
One may think that there's information coded in that,

305
00:15:30,710 --> 00:15:32,360
but it has a natural explanation.

306
00:15:33,230 --> 00:15:35,920
As strange as the sound and image may appear,

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00:15:35,920 --> 00:15:39,420
Andrew finds nothing unusual or alien about them.

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00:15:39,420 --> 00:15:42,020
Instead of a message, he sees a snapshot

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00:15:42,020 --> 00:15:44,673
of an explosive moment from a distant galaxy.

310
00:15:46,301 --> 00:15:49,634
(electronic screeching)

311
00:15:53,476 --> 00:15:56,809
(electronic screeching)

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00:15:57,660 --> 00:15:59,730
Many still believe that if we were to receive

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00:15:59,730 --> 00:16:01,487
a message from a distant civilization,

314
00:16:01,487 --> 00:16:05,083
it would come to us cloaked in a radio signal like this.

315
00:16:07,030 --> 00:16:10,000
And that is one more reason why every new radio burst

316
00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:12,013
is met with such anticipation.

317
00:16:15,800 --> 00:16:17,340
Now that scientists have determined

318
00:16:17,340 --> 00:16:20,260
that the source of the unidentified repeating signal is

319
00:16:20,260 --> 00:16:23,330
unlikely to be a supernova or a pulsar

320
00:16:25,190 --> 00:16:28,310
or even a message from beyond our galaxy

321
00:16:30,570 --> 00:16:33,210
they've turned their attention to one of the most exotic

322
00:16:33,210 --> 00:16:36,710
and violent phenomena in the universe, magnetars.

323
00:16:41,430 --> 00:16:43,927
It's something that we love to study from afar.

324
00:16:43,927 --> 00:16:45,693
(Chuckle) Don't wanna get too close.

325
00:16:47,250 --> 00:16:50,350
Like pulsars, magnetars are superdense

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00:16:50,350 --> 00:16:52,963
remnants of stars that have gone supernova.

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00:16:55,250 --> 00:16:59,310
Imagine an object with the same mass as 500000 Earths

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00:16:59,310 --> 00:17:03,010
but squeezed into about the size of a city.

329
00:17:03,010 --> 00:17:05,330
That's the equivalent density of taking every person

330
00:17:05,330 --> 00:17:07,943
on the planet and squeezing them into a sugar cube.

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00:17:09,110 --> 00:17:12,033
What sets them apart is their magnetic force.

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00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:15,480
Magnetars have the strongest magnetic fields

333
00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:16,313
in the universe.

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00:17:16,313 --> 00:17:18,520
If you were to take a magnetar and place it

335
00:17:18,520 --> 00:17:20,080
at the distance of the moon,

336
00:17:20,080 --> 00:17:21,210
which would not be a good idea,

337
00:17:21,210 --> 00:17:22,660
because it would destroy the Earth,

338
00:17:22,660 --> 00:17:24,750
but in the process it would also erase all

339
00:17:24,750 --> 00:17:26,950
of the computer hard drives and credit cards on the Earth

340
00:17:26,950 --> 00:17:29,183
because of the strength of the magnetic field.

341
00:17:30,830 --> 00:17:33,080
What a magnetar would do to a human body

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00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:34,323
is even more alarming.

343
00:17:35,540 --> 00:17:38,020
It will actually start to elongate the molecules

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00:17:38,020 --> 00:17:40,050
in your body, and it would rip the water out

345
00:17:40,050 --> 00:17:41,620
of your body because those molecules

346
00:17:41,620 --> 00:17:43,270
themselves are slightly magnetic.

347
00:17:44,510 --> 00:17:46,110
It's not gonna end well for you.

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00:17:48,270 --> 00:17:50,060
When a crack forms on a magnetar's

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00:17:50,060 --> 00:17:54,420
rigid surface, it can set off a starquake,

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00:17:54,420 --> 00:17:57,410
ejecting so much energy that it can be felt

351
00:17:57,410 --> 00:17:59,773
billions of light years across the universe.

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00:18:01,560 --> 00:18:04,810
Magnetars are extremely rare on their own.

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00:18:04,810 --> 00:18:06,730
And when scientists observed the radio waves

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00:18:06,730 --> 00:18:10,923
from FRB 121102 they discovered something rarer still.

355
00:18:13,650 --> 00:18:15,250
We saw that they were really twisted up,

356
00:18:15,250 --> 00:18:16,800
kind of like a corkscrew.

357
00:18:16,800 --> 00:18:19,100
And the degree of twist is higher

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00:18:19,100 --> 00:18:21,700
than in any other source of radio waves

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00:18:21,700 --> 00:18:22,950
that we've ever detected.

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00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:26,970
So we think that this could be a sign

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00:18:26,970 --> 00:18:29,950
that FRB 121102 is itself living

362
00:18:29,950 --> 00:18:31,573
somewhere near a black hole.

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00:18:33,020 --> 00:18:35,710
With radio telescopes like the GBD,

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00:18:35,710 --> 00:18:38,460
astronomers are peering into deep space,

365
00:18:38,460 --> 00:18:41,743
tracing a series of cataclysmic events from deep time.

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00:18:43,780 --> 00:18:48,063
A white hot magnetar nestled in the orbit of a black hole,

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00:18:48,910 --> 00:18:51,320
firing off instantaneous bursts of energy

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00:18:52,560 --> 00:18:55,973
that billions of years later can be observed from Earth.

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00:18:58,350 --> 00:19:01,393
But with every new discovery comes a new set of questions.

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00:19:02,240 --> 00:19:03,890
Within our own galaxy we have something

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00:19:03,890 --> 00:19:05,430
that's very similar.

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00:19:05,430 --> 00:19:07,930
So why are these energetic events happening

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00:19:07,930 --> 00:19:10,247
in other galaxies, but yet not our own?

374
00:19:13,150 --> 00:19:15,230
I think all scientists are just naturally drawn

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00:19:15,230 --> 00:19:17,080
to something that they can't explain.

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00:19:18,610 --> 00:19:21,790
Decoding FRB 121102 has revealed

377
00:19:21,790 --> 00:19:24,820
a part of the universe we never knew before.

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00:19:24,820 --> 00:19:26,820
And it could also help us better understand

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00:19:26,820 --> 00:19:28,790
the explosive magnetars discovered

380
00:19:28,790 --> 00:19:30,513
in our own galaxy as well.

381
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:34,280
But in this quest, astronomers understand

382
00:19:34,280 --> 00:19:35,813
that timing is everything.

383
00:19:37,098 --> 00:19:40,650
Even though we're only detecting the bursts now

384
00:19:40,650 --> 00:19:42,850
they were actually emitted hundreds of millions

385
00:19:42,850 --> 00:19:44,710
to billions of years ago.

386
00:19:44,710 --> 00:19:45,814
So it seems like we're watching

387
00:19:45,814 --> 00:19:48,480
this drama unfold in real time,

388
00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:51,380
but in fact the objects that have created these bursts

389
00:19:51,380 --> 00:19:52,733
may very well be long gone.

390
00:19:53,740 --> 00:19:55,830
But even a signal from the distant past

391
00:19:55,830 --> 00:19:57,043
can be meaningful.

392
00:19:57,990 --> 00:19:59,590
I almost feel like a moral compunction

393
00:19:59,590 --> 00:20:02,740
to listen if we can because it would be a shame

394
00:20:02,740 --> 00:20:04,690
to have these signals coming from somewhere else

395
00:20:04,690 --> 00:20:05,550
and we just sort of missed out

396
00:20:05,550 --> 00:20:08,120
because we didn't wanna listen for them.

397
00:20:08,120 --> 00:20:12,010
Our radio programs have looked at a few thousand stars.

398
00:20:12,010 --> 00:20:15,810
The optical people have maybe looked at maybe 10000 stars.

399
00:20:15,810 --> 00:20:20,550
So that's 10000 stars out of a few hundred billion.

400
00:20:20,550 --> 00:20:21,883
So not a lot.

401
00:20:22,880 --> 00:20:26,196
And then I say, okay, let's set the volume of that space

402
00:20:26,196 --> 00:20:28,863
equal to the volume of the Earth's oceans.

403
00:20:29,890 --> 00:20:33,000
Then you come up with a very sobering analogy

404
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:35,280
that so far we've search about

405
00:20:35,280 --> 00:20:37,483
one eight-ounce glass out of the ocean.

406
00:20:38,530 --> 00:20:42,210
So not a lot, but we're on an exponential curve.

407
00:20:42,210 --> 00:20:45,253
Our tools are getting better and faster.

408
00:20:46,950 --> 00:20:48,730
The growing number of signals picked up

409
00:20:48,730 --> 00:20:51,100
by the world's radio telescopes are generating

410
00:20:51,100 --> 00:20:53,230
an ever increasing flow of information

411
00:20:53,230 --> 00:20:55,173
from across time and space.

412
00:20:56,730 --> 00:20:58,470
There is no limit to what they might tell us

413
00:20:58,470 --> 00:21:00,100
about our universe.

414
00:21:00,100 --> 00:21:02,090
So long as we remain curious

415
00:21:02,090 --> 00:21:04,873
and continue to look and listen to the stars.

416
00:21:09,075 --> 00:21:11,825
(dramatic music)