According to National Geographic the sources of mysterious radio signals which have been puzzling astronomers for years have been discovered. According to a study by Emily Petroff, the signals, called Perytons, turn out to be from microwave ovens:
But almost since the beginning, one thing has been clear about perytons: Despite mimicking a deep space signal, they're produced by a source that's somewhere near Earth. Astronomers knew this because perytons simultaneously show up in multiple viewing fields rather than arriving from a single point.
In this respect, perytons are very much unlike their cousins called fast radio bursts, highly energetic signals that truly appear to be coming from very, very far away and have no known origin.
Petroff and her colleagues discovered the source of perytons after they installed a real-time radio interference monitor at the Parkes telescope. In January, the telescope detected three of the signals – and the interference monitor picked up three simultaneous interference signatures. The team recognized the interloping frequencies as possibly belonging to a microwave oven.
[...] As one might expect from a cosmological signal, fast radio bursts tend to show up rather randomly around the clock. But, perhaps unsurprisingly in retrospect, the peryton data show those signals "clustering near the lunchtime hour."
The study in question is available at arXiv.org, and according to the summary:
Subsequent tests revealed that a peryton can be generated at 1.4 GHz when a microwave oven door is opened prematurely and the telescope is at an appropriate relative angle. Radio emission escaping from microwave ovens during the magnetron shut-down phase neatly explain all of the observed properties of the peryton signals.
Spotted at Scientific American's Physics Week In Review.
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Radio telescope observations in 1996 showed little structure in the protostar, while new (2014) observations showed significantly more structure in the protostar. From the Science Magazine article:
In teenagers as in stars, the first years of life are times of great change. A massive protostar that lies about 4250 light-years from Earth has undergone a dramatic evolution over the course of just 18 years, a new study reveals. In 1996, when scientists used a radio telescope to observe a star-forming region dubbed W75N(B), one of the objects in that cloud—called VLA 2—had very little structure: Its magnetic field wasn’t oriented in any particular direction, and the ionized material streaming from the star—its version of solar wind—spewed outward at similar speeds in all directions. But observations last year hint that the protostar’s stellar wind was flowing more quickly from the object’s poles (relative speeds depicted in bluish ovoid in image above), and its magnetic field had become aligned with that of the larger cloud of gas and dust that surrounds it[Abstract].
...
Over the next few hundred thousand years, W75N(B)-VLA 2 will evolve into a star about six times the mass of our sun, team members estimate.
This story has also been covered by Astronomy.com, Phys.org, and the BBC.
According to IEEE Spectrum a proposed robot lawnmower from iRobot (developers of the Roomba) has astronomers concerned about the proposed design.
In order to provide the robot lawnmower with information about position iRobot are proposing to use wireless beacons in the 6240-6740 MHz range, which covers a region of the radio spectrum the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) uses for observations, and iRobot would like the FCC to allow them to operate in this protected spectrum by issuing a waiver:
As you might expect, the NRAO got a little bit upset that iRobot wanted to set up its beacons to broadcast on a protected frequency, because they're worried that people's lawn mower beacons would start to mess with their radio astronomy data. So, they’ve filed a comment to that effect on iRobot's FCC waiver application, to which iRobot responded, and then NRAO responded to that.
We’ve read through these documents (including iRobot’s waiver application, NRAO’s comments, iRobot’s response, and NRAO’s reply), and they’re full of amusingly passive-aggressive commentary from both sides as they argue back and forth in front of the FCC.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Subsentient on Monday April 13 2015, @02:14AM
Me thinks they gots a little egg on their faces now.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @08:53AM
(Score: 3, Funny) by kaszz on Monday April 13 2015, @02:20AM
So they revealed that microwave ovens are alive and is conspiring for world domination via their 1.4 GHz network. Evil bastards.. they must be sentenced to recycling! :D
I wonder if that toaster is conspiring against the people of Earth too... Hmmmm.
(Score: 3, Funny) by arslan on Monday April 13 2015, @02:28AM
You joke, but maybe that's how skynet or Xenu is encrypting its comms... hide it in plain sight inside white noise generated by ourselves.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 13 2015, @02:56AM
Yeap, even more so. Just monitor what happens in the 300GHz - 430 THz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 13 2015, @12:33PM
Those ev1l frequencies from the axis of toasters!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @02:27AM
But the signal was... 44°35′26″N 104°42′56″W
(Score: 2) by SrLnclt on Monday April 13 2015, @02:32AM
I see what you did there. Someone once told me "you'll know it when you see it".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @03:00AM
It wasn't him, it was me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @06:02PM
No, it was me.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Leebert on Monday April 13 2015, @02:31AM
I'm guessing the final clue came when someone thought to see if there was a correlation between high peryton emissions and the Super Bowl halftime show? :)
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @02:33AM
It's coming from the Planet of the Apes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @02:44AM
Perry! Did you forget to hit "Cancel" on the microwave before you opened the damn door again???
(Score: 3, Interesting) by wisnoskij on Monday April 13 2015, @04:32AM
So opening a Microwave oven manually actually lets radiation out? I always thought that the oven would shut down competently well before a the door had actually been opened far enough to let radiation out.
(Score: 1) by SubiculumHammer on Monday April 13 2015, @04:43AM
I do not know enough to know whether your comment is insightful, but I am interested in hearing a response.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @06:05PM
My dad borrowed a Geiger counter to check ours when microwave ovens came on the market in the 70s. It leaked out the door seams and slightly out the window.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @09:08AM
Except that a Geiger counter cannot measure microwave radiation. Whatever your dad measured, it was not the microwaves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by stormwyrm on Monday April 13 2015, @07:00AM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @08:47AM
Don't underestimate the danger! Out in space there are evil aliens scanning for intelligent life forms they can conquer by searching for the signatures of microwave ovens. After all, the frequency suitable to heat water-containing substances is the same everywhere in the universe.
So all those leaking microwave ovens will eventually lead to a visit of those aliens, and thus the end of our civilization!
(Score: 1) by Pseudonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:05PM
I know the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation but still don't unnecessarily expose myself (or others) to radiation, ionizing or not.
One time the door sensor mechanism on a microwave oven in my vicinity was stuck and the oven kept operating with the door open.
The mechanism wasn't tampered with and my theory is the latches must've been stuck on some muck in a position that the door sensors detected the door was closed, the problem corrected itself once the door was closed and opened again.
I don't know how long these signals lasted but these kinds of issues with current microwaves can very well be the cause of semi-lengthy radio signals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @12:55AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:26AM
Your WiFi router generates more 2.4 GHz radiation than what escapes your microwave when opening the door.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday April 13 2015, @04:43AM
Guess this pretty much kills iRobot's plan for robotic lawnmowers.
http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/04/10/1239215 [soylentnews.org]
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 4, Informative) by theronb on Monday April 13 2015, @05:01AM
If you're ever in West Virginia take the time for the side trip to the Green Bank National Radio Astronomy Observatory. They have a small but very nice museum there and give a great tour of the grounds. Radio interference is one of the topics they talk about - they have a guy with a SUV who drives around the local area scouting out noisy microwaves, garage door openers, etc. and everyone who lives nearby has agreed not to use noisy equipment. They don't allow digital photography in the part of the tour near the antennas because the camera chips create noise spikes - they can show you the signal. Film photography is okay - one guy on my tour had the foresight to bring an old 35mm SLR.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @05:21AM
Microwaves use 2.4Ghz not 1.4Ghz, is this a typo in the article?, if it isn't then forget about Microwaves, it's gotta be something else locally produced.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @06:31AM
Microwaves, like anything else, have a band that is commonly referred as 2.4 Ghz. The reason why that spectrum is clear and how microwaves work is the same: water absorbs it. That radiation does not go far. The 1.4 listed will travel far and is probably a half-harmonic of 2.8, which is close enough to be absorbed by many things, or merely some artifact of the magnetron, as eluded to at the end of the summary.
(Score: 5, Informative) by pe1rxq on Monday April 13 2015, @10:59AM
The 1.42GHz is a spectral line of neutral Hydrogen and used a lot in Radio Astronomy. (Among others to map our own Milky Way).
Microwave ovens are supposed to be operating at 2.45Ghz which is different enough not to cause interference. But it is possible that a microwave tube emits some other frequencies as well when power is being cut off.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday April 13 2015, @05:19PM
You would like to think overload and distortion stats for a preamp are like "infinite" but unfortunately the operating point for an amp that optimizes for lowest thermal noise usually doesn't optimize for best IP3. In other words the most sensitive amps tend not to be the most interference-proof. Sticking a lossy bandpass filter on the input is not likely to help the input noise power LOL.
Its moderately annoying with ham radio microwave stuff. You drive up to a hilltop during a contest expecting awesome events and someone put a cell phone tower on the hill ruining your preamp inputs even ridiculous frequency difference.
Everyone knows someone who outright blew out their 1.2 GHz preamp by driving by an airport full of ADS-B transponders operating at 1090 MHz or whatever it is. Beyond mere interference you have burning stuff out.
Also you'd like to think antenna sidelobes are perfect -100 dB down or something, but again, best overall aperture illumination sometimes means cruddy high sidelobes. You could stick an antenna feed on a dish with really clean sidelobes, but it won't have as high performance as a feed with bad sidelobes. Antenna sidelobes are like your stereotypical flashlight, in theory on paper 100% of the light would go the right way but in reality the mirror is bad enough that you can trivially tell if the lamp is on or off by looking from the side not right down the main beam. And most antennas (all?) are reciprocal so what you can see from it, can interfere with it if its receiving.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @08:22PM
global warming - nuking the planet one meal at a time!