Karl Grossman, a full professor of journalism at the State University of New York, College at Old Westbury and the host of “Enviro Close-Up with Karl Grossman,” a nationally aired television program focused on environmental, energy and space issues, joined Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear Thursday to explain that the origins of the space radio bursts really are a cosmic mystery thus far.
The mystery radio waves were first reported on by USA Today, which cited a new paper published on February 3 by Cornell University researchers. According to the scientists, the radio waves were detected once an hour for four days and then stopped before starting again 12 days later. This repetitive cycle of bursts emanating from a galaxy about 500 million-light years away continued every 16.35 days for more than a year.
“Every so often, you hear about signals from outer space, but as you note, this piece in USA Today speaks about this being the first time scientists have detected a radio signal from outer space that repeats at regular intervals,” Grossman told hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou.
“I sure hope they might be sending us a message not to screw up Earth, not to blow up planet Earth. This would be my hope, but it’s a mystery. It’s the kind of thing, in terms of activity in space, this is the thing we have to consider: if there is in fact life out there, as opposed to what the focus is and has been - making space a new arena of war, bringing Earth-based war up to space,” he explained.
According to the Science X Network, a leading science and technology news service, the repetitive nature of the bursts “suggests the source could be a celestial body of some kind orbiting around a star or another body. In such a scenario, the signals would cease when they are obstructed by the other body.”
"But that still does not explain how a celestial body could be sending out such signals on a regular basis. Another possibility is that stellar winds might be alternately boosting or blocking signals from a body behind them. Or it could be that the source is a celestial body that is rotating,” the Science X Network added.
Or perhaps it could be an alien species?
However, Grossman notes that it’s highly unlikely that even a very intelligent species would be able to produce such energies.
“This is a cosmic mystery as to what it is, whether it’s directed at us or whether it’s just being emitted in space and we’re taking it up now. But again, the repetition at regular intervals is unusual. Why would it be repeated at regular intervals?” Gross asked.
In a Monday statement on the phenomenon, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said: “The signals are a sign of energetic events that are on the extreme scale of the cosmos. Even a highly intelligent species would be very unlikely to produce energies like this. And there is no detectable pattern so far that would suggest there’s a sentient hand at play.”
