Mysterious fast radio bursts (FRBs) helped astronomers weigh our galaxy, and reveal that some matter is missing.
For over a decade now, so-called fast radio bursts have been puzzling scientists. These ultra-short-lived, bright flashes of radio waves across the sky happen all day, but no one yet knows what causes them.
Caltech astronomers built an observatory called the Deep Synoptic Array , a collection of 110 radio antennas nestled in the Owens Valley of Central California on the ancestral lands of the Big Pine Paiute Tribe, to make more precise measurements of FRBs. Their goal is to pinpoint the location on the sky of each FRB they observe, to help figure out where these flashes originate. This task requires highly detailed resolution — the equivalent of spotting a dime on the surface of the moon.
In the long run, astronomers hope to build an even more advanced FRB observatory, nicknamed DSA-2000 — yes, that's an array of two thousand radio dishes — in the Nevada desert. But even the initial DSA is a powerful instrument for observing FRBs. The pinpointing capability is particularly important, Ravi said."By figuring out what the environments of FRBs are like, we can say something about their origins."
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