{"id":4435,"date":"2020-07-02T23:06:51","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T22:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/?p=4435"},"modified":"2022-04-13T15:57:43","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T14:57:43","slug":"pythagorean-astronomy-mass-gaps-and-radio-bursts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/2020\/07\/02\/pythagorean-astronomy-mass-gaps-and-radio-bursts\/","title":{"rendered":"Pythagorean Astronomy: Mass Gaps and Radio Bursts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4436\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4436\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/236\/2020\/07\/BHNS_sm-300x212.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"212\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/236\/2020\/07\/BHNS_sm-300x212.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/236\/2020\/07\/BHNS_sm-478x338.jpg 478w, https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/236\/2020\/07\/BHNS_sm-768x543.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/236\/2020\/07\/BHNS_sm.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist&#8217;s rendition shows a neutron star orbiting a larger black hole. Image credit: Carl Knox (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ozgrav.org\/\">OzGrav<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Science news stories normally revolve around something new that&#8217;s been learned, or some question that\u2019s been answered. But sometimes, and these are often the most interesting times, there\u2019s an observation or discovery that raises a whole new set of questions \u2013 and the mystery deepens. This month we discuss two such discoveries.<\/p>\n<p>First of all, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cardiff.ac.uk\/news\/view\/2408694-cardiff-student-at-the-centre-of-ligos-mysterious-new-discovery\">unusual gravitation wave event<\/a>, detected back in August 2019 and dubbed GW190814. We\u2019ve discussed gravitational waves a number of times on Pythagorean Astronomy before \u2013 these ripples in space that are caused by, among other things, massive objects spiralling in and merging. Cardiff University researchers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cardiff.ac.uk\/people\/view\/1727367-antonini-fabio\">Dr Fabio Antonini<\/a> and graduate student Charlie Hoy explain why this discovery is unusual, and what we know about the source objects.<\/p>\n<p>Second up is the conundrum of Fast Radio Bursts. First discovered in 2007, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.utoronto.ca\/news\/chime-study-involving-u-t-astronomers-finds-fast-radio-bursts-repeat-time-scale-weeks\">latest discovery<\/a> in the unravelling detective story was made by the CHIME telescope, and involves a fast radio burst that appears to repeat on a roughly 16 day timescale. The study was led by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dunlap.utoronto.ca\/dunlap-people\/dongzi-li\/\">Dongzi Li<\/a>, a graduate student in Toronto University, who explores what might create such a peculiar signal.<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-4435-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/astrog80.astro.cf.ac.uk\/pythagoras-trousers\/mp3\/Jun2020_full_PHYSX.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/astrog80.astro.cf.ac.uk\/pythagoras-trousers\/mp3\/Jun2020_full_PHYSX.mp3\">http:\/\/astrog80.astro.cf.ac.uk\/pythagoras-trousers\/mp3\/Jun2020_full_PHYSX.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>An extended edition of an original broadcast on 2nd July 2020 as part of Pythagoras&#8217; Trousers on Radio Cardiff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Science news stories normally revolve around something new that&#8217;s been learned, or some question that\u2019s been answered. But sometimes, and these are often the most interesting times, there\u2019s an observation or discovery that raises a whole new set of questions \u2013 and the mystery deepens. This month we discuss two such discoveries. First of all,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"featured_media":4436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,32,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-astronomy-2","category-pythagorean-astronomy","category-radio-and-podcasts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hmOz-19x","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/236\/2020\/07\/BHNS_sm.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4435"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4440,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4435\/revisions\/4440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/physicsoutreach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}