Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are one of the greater mysteries facing astronomers today, rivaled only by gravitational waves (GWs) and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Originally discovered in 2007 by American astronomer Duncan Lorimer (for whom the “Lorimer Burst” is named), these short, intense blasts of radio energy produce more power in a millisecond than the sun generates in a month.
In most cases, FRBs are one-off events that brightly flash and are never heard from again. But in some cases, astronomers have detected FRBs that were repeating in nature, raising more questions about what causes them.
Prior to the discovery of FRBs, the most powerful bursts observed in the Milky Way were produced by neutron stars, which are visible from up to 100,000 light-years away. However, according to new research led by the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), a newly detected FRB was a billion times more radiant than anything produced by a neutron star.