Strange ‘outer space’ signal turns out to be microwave oven...

[Donal]

Daily Telegraph report:
Scientists monitoring an Australian radio telescope have discovered that a series of strange signals which have baffled astrophysicists for 17 years were caused by the facility’s kitchen microwave being opened while in use.

The finding was made by Emily Petroff, a PhD student, who set up an interference monitor at the site to investigate the signals, known as perytons, which were thought to be from space but were also known – somewhat unusually – to be detected only during business hours.

The signals were first detected at Australia’s Parkes telescope in 1998 and were similar in frequency and duration to fast radio bursts, which are believed to come from another galaxy.

Soon after setting up the monitor, Ms Petroff in January detected three short signal bursts, whose data indicated a source similar to a microwave oven. The signals were also detected by the 210-foot telescope.

Ms Petroff and a team of scientists then went to examine the microwave in the facility’s kitchen and discovered that opening it while it was in use could trigger the reception of the perytons.

The mystery was solved: the signals came from impatient researchers opening the microwave door prematurely.

And the moral to this story is.................

 

[yamafitter]

And the moral to this story is.................

Aliens don't want to wait for all the microwave popcorn to pop.

 

[puppychow]

You believe what you want to believe..

 

[rushes]

Oops! Did I do that? lol

 

[ionbeam]

I had a very, very pretty blond girlfriend that gave blonds their reputation. The day that she put a hard boiled egg in the microwave would have caused the 'scientists' to believe that intergalactic war had commenced

BTW, data and measurements are facts, the beliefs, theories and conclusions drawn from these facts are merely educated guesses. Usually wild guesses.

 

[Surly]

Laugh if you must, but without the Parks Telescope we would not have seen Niel Armstrong walk on the moon. Or did we????

 

[wheatonFJR]

You can be smart and still be a *******...

 

[Intech]

Common sense and intelligence don't necessarily go hand in hand.

 

[Uncle Hud]

And the moral to this story is.................

Aussies drink FAR more than they should.

 

[infrared]

Daily Telegraph report:Scientists monitoring an Australian radio telescope have discovered that a series of strange signals which have baffled astrophysicists for 17 years were caused by the facility’s kitchen microwave being opened while in use.

Man, what a failure of the education system! 17 YEARS?

Those "signals" would not have fooled a SETI scientist for a minute. Earth rotates, it orbits the Sun, and the Sun is generally headed toward Vega at a fair clip, Any "outer space" signal would be Doppler shifted, or more to the point, Doppler smeared across the reciever's bandwidth by all that Earth motion, not to mention whatever velocities the sender has going. Any two such signals, with no Doppler shift, would have to be from an Earth-bound source. Remember that cops can use Doppler-shift radar to nail a speeder at roadway speeds. At the astronomical speeds of the Earth and Sun, the Doppler shifts of incoming signals are absolutely blatant. This is really unimpressive.

Now here is a link to knock your socks off. These outer-space radio signals are very powerful, extremely regular in timing, and definitely extra-terrestrial. They are not evidence of life "out there," however. Click on each gray arrow button there:

https://www.jb.man.ac.uk/~pulsar/Education/Sounds/sounds.html

Cheers,

Infrared

 

[Surly]

 

[HotRodZilla]

What's impressive is that that dammed microwave lasted 17 years!! As far as the "scientists," well, I learned around 18 years ago that the evidence dictates where the case goes, not the other way around...Dorks!

Is this real? I could see The Onion making this up just to screw with us. I can't believe a bunch of educated people wouldn't realize that aliens wouldn't stick to a Monday-Friday, 9-5 schedule. Sheesh.

 

[Pterodactyl]

Aliens have a good union.

Just imagine spending 17 years of your career working on one issue and then finding out the issue never existed.

 

[bluesdog]

Originally researchers assumed the signals – which appeared only once or twice a year – were coming from the atmosphere, possibly linked to lightning strikes.Then on 1 January this year they installed a new receiver which monitored interference, and detected strong signals at 2.4 GHz, the signature of a microwave oven.

Immediate testing of the facility microwave oven did not show up with perytons. Until, that is, they opened the oven door before it had finished heating. “If you set it to heat and pull it open to have a look, it generates interference,” Johnston said.

Astronomers generally operate the telescope remotely and do not reside at Parkes. There were, however, a number of operational staff members who maintained the facility and used the microwave oven to heat their coffee or lunch.

Johnston said the “suspicious perytons” were only detected during the daytime and as they now knew, not during the evening when all the staff had finished their shift.

The signals were rare because the interference only occurred when the telescope was pointed in the direction of the microwave oven. And “when you only find a few it’s hard to pin them down”, Johnston said.

Looks like the mysterious signal was rare, and randomly detected for most of the 17 years.

I can understand this as similar to an intermittent fault, and therefore difficult to troubleshoot. Once new, more sensitive equipment was installed, it seems it didn't take very long to locate the source.

Article: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/05/microwave-oven-caused-mystery-signal-plaguing-radio-telescope-for-17-years

 

[mcatrophy]

... Earth rotates, it orbits the Sun, and the Sun is generally headed toward Vega at a fair clip, Any "outer space" signal would be Doppler shifted, or more to the point, Doppler smeared across the reciever's bandwidth by all that Earth motion, not to mention whatever velocities the sender has going....Cheers,

Infrared

Unfortunately not quite so simple. These are "frequency-smeared" impulses, so there is no reference for a doppler shift as would be from a simpler signal with known frequencies, such as emissions from hydrogen gas.

Quote from her paper:

ABSTRACT

“Perytons” are millisecond-duration transients of terrestrial origin, whose frequency-swept emission mimics the dispersion of an astrophysical pulse that has propagated through tenuous cold plasma. In fact, their similarity to FRB 010724 had previously cast a shadow over the interpretation of “fast radio bursts,” which otherwise appear to be of extragalactic origin. Until now, the physical origin of the dispersion-mimicking perytons had remained a mystery. We have identified strong out-of-band emission at 2.3–2.5 GHz associated with several peryton events. 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. Now that the peryton source has been identified, we furthermore demonstrate that the microwaves on site could not have caused FRB 010724. This and other distinct observational differences show that FRBs are excellent candidates for genuine extragalactic transients.

 

[infrared]

... Earth rotates, it orbits the Sun, and the Sun is generally headed toward Vega at a fair clip, Any "outer space" signal would be Doppler shifted, or more to the point, Doppler smeared across the reciever's bandwidth by all that Earth motion, not to mention whatever velocities the sender has going....Infrared

Unfortunately not quite so simple. These are "frequency-smeared" impulses, so there is no reference for a doppler shift as would be from a simpler signal with known frequencies, such as emissions from hydrogen gas.

mcatrophy,

Yep, I did say smeared. No reference frequency is needed. If the smearing is the same each time, no matter the original frequency, that is not possible unless the source is on Earth.

Cheers,

Infrared

 

[mcatrophy]

... Earth rotates, it orbits the Sun, and the Sun is generally headed toward Vega at a fair clip, Any "outer space" signal would be Doppler shifted, or more to the point, Doppler smeared across the reciever's bandwidth by all that Earth motion, not to mention whatever velocities the sender has going....Infrared

Unfortunately not quite so simple. These are "frequency-smeared" impulses, so there is no reference for a doppler shift as would be from a simpler signal with known frequencies, such as emissions from hydrogen gas.

mcatrophy,

Yep, I did say smeared. No reference frequency is needed. If the smearing is the same each time, no matter the original frequency, that is not possible unless the source is on Earth.

Cheers,

Infrared

Don't really want to get into an argument

, but I think you underestimate the difficulties involved.

If you look at the graphs in Figure 1 in her paper, you can see the smear pattern (I reproduce one below).

(click on image for larger view)



If you calculate the frequency shift of a 1500 MHz signal at even the solar speed of about 230km/s, let alone the earth's speed around the sun of about 30km/h, you get a frequency shift of some 0.077% or about 1.15 MHz. I found a web site to do this for me ...

(click on the image below to see the calculation)



I think it highly unlikely that a 1.15MHz difference in about 1500 MHz would be noticeable with the samples they were getting.

Maybe with statistical analysis of thousands of samples.

 

[rushes]

 

[infrared]

Mcatrophy,

Okay, not to argue, but just some factors, for a radio source outside of our galaxy (which is what they thought was the source):

Earth rotates ~1,000 mph.

Earth orbits the Sun ~67,000 mph.

Sun orbits the Milky Way Galaxy ~500,000 mph.

Local galaxies moving at ~2,000,000 mph.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

~2568000 mph (~4100000 kph)

and the Doppler shift will be the result of some fraction of that maximum number.

The speed and direction of the source would add to or subtract from that number, of course.

Cheers,

Infrared