A star could be the reason behind your bad cellphone reception
Researchers are investigating a very strange phenomenon in South Africa that could be affecting all cellphone users.
Darren Maule has noticed that he has being getting very bad reception when on a call in areas he has had no issues in before. Have you also noticed the same thing?
According to researchers, a star could be disrupting mobile phone reception across South Africa.
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Soebur Razzaque, who is the research team leader and the University of Johannesburg Centre for Astro-Particle Physics (CAPP) director, said that this is caused by a sun (a very ordinary star) when it dies.
"When it dies, it will get bigger and become a red giant star. After that it will collapse into a small compact star called a white dwarf. When these massive stars die, they explode into a supernova.
"What’s left after this is a very small compact star, small enough to fit in a city about 20km across. This star is called a neutron star, so dense that just a spoonful of it would weigh tons on earth.
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Razzaque said that it’s these massive stars, and what’s left of them, that cause the biggest explosions in the universe.
In order to decipher and detect the bursts, scientists in South Africa are using MeerKAT radio telescope.
"The better we understand these fleeting explosions, the better we may understand the universe we live in. A star dying soon after the beginning of the universe could be disrupting cell phone reception today. This means that gamma-ray bursts can tell us more about how the universe expands and evolves over time," Razzaque added.
Watch below:
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IMAGE: Twitter/TheCapeArgus
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