An incredible strong fast radio burst from deep in outer space, the strongest recorded since 2007, has stunned scientists who are trying to figure out the cause. FRBs refer to radio waves that flash from some distsnace point in space for just a few milliseconds, and they can contain as much energy as 500 million suns.

They are so mysterious because they are impossible to predict, or trace to an individual source. They happen without warning and last for just a few milliseconds. These lastest bursts were detected by the Parkes radio telescope in Australia, once on March 1, again on March 9, and a third time on March 11.

The strongest was the one on March 9, which hit 411 on the signal to noise ratio. As comparison, the previous ratio record was 90, and many FRBs are less than 20. Scientists don’t know much about FRBs or what causes them, although they speculate incredibly powerful events like the collision of black holes or neutron stars might cause them.

“In radio astronomy, a fast radio burst (FRB) is a high-energy astrophysical phenomenon of unknown origin manifested as a transient radio pulse lasting only a few milliseconds,” states a Wikipedia excerpt. “The first FRB was discovered by Duncan Lorimer and his student David Narkevic in 2007 when they were looking through archival pulsar survey data, and it is therefore commonly referred to as Lorimer Burst. Many FRBs have since been found, including a repeating FRB.

“When the FRBs are polarized, it indicates that they are emitted from a source contained within an extremely powerful magnetic field. The origin of the FRBs has yet to be determined; proposals for its origin range from a rapidly rotating neutron star and a black hole to extraterrestrial intelligence.”