Mysterious cosmic radio burst caught live for the first time

(Image credit: YouTube/RoyalAstrononicalSociety)

It was over in milliseconds, but the Parkes radio telescope in Australia was still able to see for the first time a "fast radio burst" happen live.

These short, sharp flashes of radio waves were first discovered in 2007, the Royal Astronomical Society says, and astronomers are still trying to determine what exactly they are and where they come from; they have generally been discovered "weeks or months or even more than a decade after they happened," PhD candidate Emily Petroff said in a statement.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.