New telescope detects 'hundreds' more mysterious radio bursts from space
A new telescope 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.
Lasting as little as a fraction of a millisecond, 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 professor Avi Loeb.
A programme called the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, or CHIME, has used a radio telescope in British Columbia to observe 535 new FRBs in just 12 months between 2018 and 2019, the first results show.
The powerful digital signalling processor works at about seven terabits per second - equivalent to a few per cent of the world's internet traffic.
Team member Kaitlyn Shin, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said: "Before CHIME, there were less than 100 total discovered FRBs. Now, after one year of observation, we've discovered hundreds more.
