New telescope detects hundreds of mysterious radio bursts

A newtelescope has detected ‘‘hundreds’’ of mysterious radio bursts from space, prompting a string of theories about where they’re coming from that run from the mundane to the astonishing. Fast radio bursts (FRBS) are very short but very intense pulses of radio waves that were first discovered in 2007. Lasting as little as a fraction of amillisecond, they are thought to travel to Earth from other galaxies far out in the universe, and could be coming from other civilisations, according to Harvard scientist Avi Loeb. A radio telescope in British Columbia has been used to observe 535 newfrbs in just 12months between 2018 and 2019, the first results show.