Fast radio burst: Astronomers spot most distant cosmic phenomenon detected so far in distant galaxy

The super intense, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves of a fast radio burst (FRB) come from unidentified sources in the distant cosmos, and this one released the equivalent of the Sun's total emission over 30 years, in a tiny fraction of a second. Astronomers have spotted the most distant fast radio burst (FRB) to date in a galaxy so far away that its light took eight billion years to reach Earth. ? The remote blast of cosmic radio waves, whose source was detected by the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), lasted less than a millisecond. ? It released the equivalent of the Sun's total emission over 30 years, in a tiny fraction of a second, making it one of the most energetic FRBs ever observed, scientists said. ? FRBs are super intense, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves produced by unidentified sources in the distant cosmos. ? They were discovered in 2007 by American astronomer Duncan Lorimer, Science Alert said on its website. ? Only a few dozen similar events have been observed in data collected by radio telescopes around the world and it is not known what causes them, the Science journal said on its website. ? Most last just a few milliseconds and are never seen again, but two are known to have repeated their emissions. The discovery confirms that FRBs can be used to measure the missing matter between galaxies, offering a new way to weigh the Universe, the research team said. At the moment, the methods used to gauge the mass of the Universe give conflicting answers and challenge the standard model of cosmology.