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Fast Radio Bursts: First Distance Measurement

Have we finally traced a Fast Radio Burst to its place of origin? News from the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) radio telescopes in eastern Australia, along with confirming data from the Japanese Subaru instrument in Hawaii, suggests the answer is yes. Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are transient radio pulses that last scant milliseconds. In that amount of time, they have been known to emit as much energy as the Sun emits in 10,000 years. And exactly what causes FRBs is still a mystery. Take the so-called ‘Lorimer Burst’ ( FRB 010724) which was discovered in archival data from 2001 at the Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales. Here we’re dealing with a 30-jansky dispersed burst that was less than 5 milliseconds in duration. Although the burst appeared roughly in the direction of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the FRB is not thought to be associated with our galaxy at all. A 2015 event, FRB 110523, was discovered in data from the Green Bank dish in West Virginia, with an origin thought to be as much as six billion light years away.”

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