Fast Radio Bursts (FRB)

Context

Recently, astronomers have reported a Fast Radio Burst (FRB) whose characteristics are different from almost all other FRBs previously detected, except one.

About Fast Radio Burst (FRB)

• FRBs are super intense, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves produced by unidentified sources in the distant cosmos.
• They were first discovered in 2007 when scientists combed through archival pulsar data.
• Pulsars refer to spherical, compact objects in the universe, which are about the size of a large city but contain more mass than the sun.
• They often look like flickering stars but are not stars.
  
  
  

Significance

• It can be used to understand the three–dimensional structure of matter in the universe.
• It will even help to learn about the origin and evolution of the universe.
• Big questions still remain, and this object is giving us challenging clues about those questions relating to the Universe.