Mysterious and powerful deep space radio bursts are traced to dwarf galaxy, far, far away

A mysterious type of radio wave from deep space, discovered only a decade ago, has been traced to a precise source for the first time, astronomers said Wednesday.

So-called fast radio bursts (FRBs) picked up in 2016 by a telescope in New Mexico likely emanated from a dwarf galaxy some three billion light years from Earth, the scientists reported in the journal Nature.

FRBs flash only for an micro-instant, and can emit as much energy in a millisecond as the Sun does in 10,000 years.

Exactly what causes these high-energy surges of long waves at the far end of the electromagnetic spectrum remains the subject of intense debate.

The new discovery will not settle the issue, but it definitively eliminates several theories that had been in the running, scientists said.

There have been 18 fast radio bursts registered since 2007, but only one - observed in 2012 at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and dubbed FRB 121102 - recurred numerous times.