Mystery Noise Found in Space

On Wednesday, January 7th, 2009, Scientists announced a very unique and one of a kind discovery. Alan Kogut of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is quoted as saying there is “something new and interesting going on in the universe.” Kogut and his team of astronomers launched a “balloon-borne instrument” named ARCADE (Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission) sometime in July of 2006. Their goal was to find signs of heat from the first generation of stars being newly formed in the universe. Although this may not seem exciting to the average person, what they found is still intriguing astronomers today. ARCADE found a loud “roar” coming from an unknown source in the cosmos.

After analyzing the unique sound, scientist have ruled out the possibility of newly forming stars or typical sound waves. Sound waves can not carry over distance through the vacuum of space, so the unknown sound has been classified as radio waves. There are many objects in space that produce raw forms of radio waves, including our own galaxy, so this development is not as uncommon as it sounds. The strange part is, they are saying the sound is so loud it can not possibly be a star forming or any known source of radio waves discovered thus far.

One NASA scientist discribed the sound as “six times” louder than all the known radio producing galaxies put together. The problem is, they simply can not determine where the source of the emmisions is located. The sound is now blocking out the original star forming sounds Kogut and his team were searching for to begin with. Scientists are now more interested in the unknown sound. The fact that the sound comes from an unfathomable distance means it began in the earliest stages of our known universe, and may hold secrets that were not available before.