Mysterious radio signal traced to dwarf galaxy three billion light-years away

Fast radio bursts were first discovered in 2007, and scientists have been trying to ascertain their origin and cause ever since.

There are currently 18 known FRBs, but they were all detected by non-specialist radio telescopes that were unable to narrow down their origin to a precise location, according to researchers at McGill University.

In 2012, scientists at Cornell spotted that one signal just three one-thousandths of a second long — FRB121102 — was repeating sporadically.

“There’s a patch of the sky from which we’re getting this signal — and the patch of the sky is arc minutes in diameter. In that patch are hundreds of sources. Lots of stars, lots of galaxies, lots of stuff,” Chatterjee said.