China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) has detected a repeating fast radio burst (FRB)—strange radio (signal) from outer space—for the first time. Scientists on the FAST project with the National Astronomical Observatories of China broke the news Wednesday.
The FRB originated some three billion light years away from Earth. FRB is one of the (hot) ever topics in astronomy. It was not until 2007 the first FRB was discovered by humans. Fewer than 100 FRBs have been detected internationally to date. There is still no convincing (explain) for the origin of FRB in the international scientific community at present.
FRBs mostly only appear once, which makes them very hard (track). The FRB detected by FAST's real-time detection terminal, however, is one that has been observed before. (know) as FRB121102, it was first discovered in 2012 and found to repeat in 2015. Analysis of data later (indicate) that the signal came from a dwarf galaxy (矮星系)three billion light years away. The first pulse from FRB121102 (spot) by FAST on August 30. After this, telescope recorded dozens of pulses from the FRB over the course of days. On September 3 alone, more than 20 pulses were detected.
