But we still have much to learn, such as what causes them.
We know the intense bursts originate in galaxies billions of light years away. We have also used these bursts (called FRBs) to find missing matter that couldn’t be found otherwise.
With teams of astronomers around the world racing to understand their enigma, how did we get to where we are now?
The first burst
The first FRB was discovered in 2007 by a team led by British-American astronomer Duncan Lorimer using Murriyang, the traditional Indigenous name for the iconic Parkes radio telescope (image, top).
The team found an incredibly bright pulse — so bright that many astronomers did not believe it to be real. But there was yet more intrigue.