SPACE
SCIENTISTS DETECT THE FASTEST EVER FAST RADIO BURSTS
WORDS JOANNA THOMPSON
Artist’s impression of the discovery of microsecond bursts at the Green Bank Telescope in the United States
Astronomers just found the fastest known radio pulses from outside our galaxy hiding in 30 minutes’ worth of radio telescope data. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extremely short highenergy pulses of electromagnetic radiation that usually originate outside our galaxy. Most last one-thousandth of a second to three seconds, during which they emit as much energy as the Sun throws out in a day.