Fast Radio Bursts Poised to Help with Biggest Cosmic Mysteries

Intense, brief flashes of radio light called fast radio bursts (FRBs) travel across billions of light-years to reach Earth, passing through a fog of matter along the way. The bursts’ origins are unclear but are thought to possibly come from highly magnetized dead stars called magnetars . The denser the fog the FRBs travel through, the more their signals will become dispersed—similar to the way a prism splits white light into a rainbow of colors.