Fast radio burst

Uncommon card · No. 115227

In radio astronomy, a fast radio burst (FRB) is a transient radio wave caused by a high-energy astrophysical process that is not yet understood. The duration of an FRB is typically around a few milliseconds, although ultra-fast radio bursts may only last 15 microseconds or less. Astronomers estimate the average FRB releases as much energy in a millisecond as the Sun puts out in three days. While extremely energetic at their source, the strength of the signal reaching Earth has been described as 1,000 times less than from a mobile phone on the Moon. The first FRB was discovered by Duncan Lorimer and his student David Narkevic in 2007 when they were looking through archival pulsar survey data, and it is therefore commonly referred to as the Lorimer burst. Many FRBs have since been recorded, including several that have been detected repeating in seemingly irregular ways. Only one FRB has been detected to repeat in a regular way: FRB 180916 seems to pulse every 16.35 days. Most FRBs are extragalactic...

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