Mysterious fast radio burst patterns in space have been observed by astronomers for only the second time in history. Now the mission is on to find out what exactly is sending these incredible bursts. Fast radio bursts, aka FRBs, "are millisecond-long bursts of radio waves in space," which astronomers have been able to sometimes trace back to the home galaxy. However, the astronomers have yet to find the cause for the FRBs and are trying to pinpoint a source.

Earlier this year, astronomers found that "FRB 180916.J0158+65 had a pattern in bursts occurring every 16.35 days." This pattern would repeat a few times an hour over the span of four days and then cease for 12 days. Astronomer have now detected a second repeating fast radio burst, named FRB 121102, but the patterns are even longer. "During this cyclical pattern, radio bursts are emitted during a 90-day window, followed by a silent period of 67 days." This new pattern repeats every 157 days, according to astronomers.

Kaustubh Rajwade, lead study author and postdoctoral researcher in astronomy at the University of Manchester, recently discussed the matter. "This is an exciting result as it is only the second system where we believe we see this modulation in burst activity," he said. "Detecting a periodicity provides an important constraint on the origin of the bursts." Rajwade went on and had this to say.

"Until now, only one other repeating FRB was known to show such a pattern in its bursting activity. Finding such a pattern reveals important clues as to what could [be] the progenitor of FRBs. A periodicity tell us that the object that is producing FRBs is probably in an orbit with another astrophysical body."

For those hoping it could be aliens, you're out of luck. It appears that the real-life versions of ALF and E.T. are not trying to contact us, which makes sense at the moment. Who would want to come to Earth during these times? The Massachusetts Institute of Technology released a statement about the possibility of aliens being behind the FRBs, which you can read below.

"The signals are a sign of energetic events that are on the extreme scale of the cosmos. Even a highly intelligent species would be very unlikely to produce energies like this. And there is no detectable pattern so far that would suggest there's a sentient hand at play."

Astronomers believe that the source of the FRBs is more than likely something in the orbital motion of a massive star, a neutron star or a black hole. Duncan Lorimer, study coauthor, associate dean for research and professor of physics and astronomy at West Virginia University, also spoke out about the FRBs and how exciting the new pattern is. "Further observations of a larger number of FRBs will be needed in order to obtain a clearer picture about these periodic sources and elucidate their origin," Lorimer said. This is certainly exciting news for astronomers, even though aliens aren't really trying to talk to us. CNN was one of the first to report on the FRBs.