NEWS BRIEFING: Mysterious one-off radio wave's deep space location pinpointed for the first time

For the first time ever, an Australian-led team of researchers has determined the location of a one-off 'fast radio burst'. Scientists don’t know what causes these intense radio bursts from outer space but determining their precise location is an exciting step towards explaining the cause of these phenomena. Since the discovery of fast radio bursts in 2007, a global hunt has netted 85 of these bursts and in 2017 astronomers pinpointed the location of a ‘repeater” burst. Until now, pinpointing the location of a one-off burst has not been achieved. The exciting discovery was made with CSIRO's ASKAP radio telescope in Western Australia and the home galaxy was imaged by three of the world's largest optical telescopes.