Aussie scientists detect mysterious intergalactic signals with new space tech

The technology, CRACO, is a cluster of computers and accelerators connected to the ASKAP radio telescope to "rapidly detect mysterious fast radio bursts and other space phenomena".

CSIRO said the technology finds mysterious objects by sifting through signals from space "like sand on the beach".

CSIRO astronomer, engineer and CRACO developer Dr Keith Bannister said the increased potential for observation was "enormous".

"CRACO taps into ASKAP's 'live' view of the sky in search of fast radio bursts," he said.

"To do this, it scans through huge volumes of data - processing 100 billion pixels per second - to detect and identify the location of bursts.

"That's the equivalent of sifting through a whole beach of sand to look for a single five-cent coin every minute."

The International Centre for Radio Astronomy (ICRAR) and Curtin University in Western Australia tested CRACO and published results in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

Researchers presented the discovery of two sporadically-emitting neutron stars and showcased improved location data of four pulsars in addition to the fast radio burst breakthrough.

Dr Andy Wang led the ICRAR research and said more astronomical objects were found than expected.

"We were focused on finding fast radio bursts, a mysterious phenomenon that has opened up a new field of research in astronomy," he said.

"CRACO is enabling us to find these bursts better than ever before. We have been searching for bursts 100 times per second and in the future we expect this will increase to 1,000 times per second.

"Once at full capacity, CRACO will be a game changer for international astronomy."

The Australian-developed technology will soon be available to astronomers all over the world as part of CSIRO's Australia Telescope National Facility.