Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are one of astronomy’s hottest topics — and biggest mysteries. These brief bursts of radio waves from outside the Milky Way typically pop off for only a fraction of a second, then disappear forever, never to be seen again. Only two FRBs have ever been caught repeating, one of which astronomers traced back to its home galaxy in 2017. Last week, researchers reported they had, for the first time, traced a one-and-done, non-repeating FRB back to its home — the second FRB ever to be tailed to its source.
Now, less than a week later, a second team has announced they’ve traced a different non-repeating FRB to its home in a massive galaxy nearly 8 billion light-years away. It is only the third FRB to be tracked to its origin and the second non-repeating FRB to be traced. Their work appears online today in Nature.
