A Population of Fast Radio Bursts at Cosmological Distances

Understand

Searches for transient astrophysical sources often reveal unexpected classes of objects that are useful physical laboratories.

• In a recent survey for pulsars and fast transients we have uncovered four millisecond-duration radio transients all more than 40{\deg} from the Galactic plane.
• The bursts' properties indicate that they are of celestial rather than terrestrial origin.
• Host galaxy and intergalactic medium models suggest that they have cosmological redshifts of 0.5 to 1, and distances of up to 3 gigaparsecs.