Peryton (astronomy)

Have you ever heard of a peryton? They are not like the mythological creature with the body of a deer and the wings of a bird. Instead, in astronomy, a peryton is a weird radio signal that some telescopes can pick up from space.

You know how you can turn on the radio and hear music or people talking? Astronomers also use radios to listen to the sounds of space. Sometimes, when they point their telescopes at certain parts of the sky, they hear a loud, short burst of radio waves that sounds like a "ping" or a "pop!" They call these perytons.

Now, perytons are not like normal space sounds that come from stars or galaxies. Scientists think they might be caused by something closer to home - like a microwave oven! That's right, when someone opens the door of a microwave oven before the timer goes off, it can send out short bursts of radiation that are similar to the ones that telescopes pick up as perytons. So, some astronomers think that the perytons they hear might be coming from the dishwashers, cell phones, or microwave ovens at their telescope's observatory.

In short, perytons are little radio bursts that some telescopes pick up from space. They sound like "pings" and "pops" and might be from something as simple as a microwave oven.