Until now, scientists have been mystified by the origin of "perytons" - intense but short bursts of energy that seemed to be coming from outer space. But the message wasn't from aliens at all, coming instead from their microwave.
When the door on their microwave was opened prematurely and if the telescope was set at a certain angle, the two interacted to give the appearance of the huge perytons.
Researchers have long been mystified by the perytons because they confused how scientists understood "fast radio bursts" (FRBs) - genuine messages from outer space that are still not explained. Those messages appear to be coming from outside our galaxy, but the perytons did not fit with that interpretation.
The discovery that the messages were actually coming from microwave ovens as they were shutting down means that scientists have been able to rule out the perytons as alien messages. And since they now know for sure that the microwaves on the site of Australia's Parkes Observatory have not been creating the mysterious fast radio bursts, they can get back to studying the FRBs.
FRBs are huge bursts of energy that seem to be coming from up to 5.5 billion light years away. They seem to be aligning in a pattern that does not fit with current understandings of astrophysics. The findings were detailed in a paper published by Emily Petroff.
