Scientists on the hunt for distant "fast radio bursts," unexplained phenomena from the far regions of space, have been haunted by one big problem: Their data set gets clouded by "Perytons," which look like the bursts but are definitely Earthly in origin. Now, a group of researchers at the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing and other facilities think they've found the origin of these terrestrail interlopers. They come from your microwave.
According to the scientists, when a microwave oven is used near a radio telescope and is opened at just the right moment, it emits peryton signals, adding on to the dozens of background noises that radio telescopes have to account for. Their study can be read here on Arxiv.
Now that the team has identified the source of the interference, radio astronomers can adjust their methods and have a better idea of what's a cosmic source of fast-moving radio waves and what's just somebody reheating a burrito.