FAST RADIO BURSTS (FRBs). Frankly, I thought these were radio signals from the farthest corners of the universe. Something like the cosmic version of the ‘wave’ function on Facebook Messenger. Like how the Whos reached out to Horton, the pink elephant (Dr Seuss!). Hey, someone just rang the doorbell!
My balloon went phut when I realised that FRBs were energy pulses. The radio came from radio telescopes which picked up the pulses. My excitement waned further when I was told that the pulse itself was generated when the earth was in diapers. The ballpark figure being bandied about is three billion years. I am told that if I send a ‘Hi’ now, that is how long it might take to reach the source of the FRB. And, to qualify as an FRB, the pulse must last five milliseconds or less. As Dr Sabrina Stierwalt, astrophysicist at the University of Virginia, put it, “Chop one second into a thousand parts and you’re looking at less than five of your pieces.”
So, a pulse that lasted for less than five milliseconds was picked up by a radio telescope. Its source was identified by a team at the University of California, Berkeley. We are not sure if a little green man sent it or if it is just the signature of a cosmic event. So, why the cover story?
Well, it is as Carl Sagan said: “The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.”
From what I gather, the excitement is about three things. A) The source of the pulse has been identified. B) There have been multiple pulses from the same source. Only one-off pulses have been traced to other sources. C) The energy emitted by the source has been massive. This is no feeble two-cell torch. This is a gargantuan lighthouse, whose beam has zoomed across dark, deep space to touch Planet Earth.
For Indians, the excitement is greater and more personal because of the involvement of Dr Vishal Gajjar, the Gujarati who is part of the Berkeley team. And, let us not forget Heng Kim Song’s cartoon for The New York Times. The milkman, the cow and the elite space club. Most countries with advanced space programmes have active Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) projects. Many scientists, like former ISRO chief Dr G. Madhavan Nair, feel that we must fund and actively support SETI. Hence, the relevance of this cover. I hope you will enjoy reading it, as much as I have.
Another piece in this issue that I recommend is Kavitha Lankesh’s tribute to her sister, Gauri Lankesh. Intensely personal, it is a piece that can be written only by a sibling.
One last bite from Sagan the sage: “Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
