A team of American astronomers has detected a huge burst of radio energy from deep space while using the Parkes radio telescope in NSW.
The huge burst of energy, which has startled scientists with its strength, is thought to have originated over 500 mega-parsecs or one-and-a-half billion light years from earth. More at:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070927/2/14jgt.html
Pulsar surveys offer one of the few opportunities to monitor even a small fraction (~10-5) of the radio sky for impulsive burst-like events with millisecond durations. In analysis of archival survey data, we have discovered a 30-Jy dispersed burst of duration <5 ms located three degrees from the Small Magellanic Cloud. The burst properties argue against a physical association with our Galaxy or the Small Magellanic Cloud. Current models for the free electron content in the Universe imply the burst is <1 Gpc distant. No further bursts are seen in 90-hr of additional observations, implying that it was a singular event such as a supernova or coalescence of relativistic objects. Hundreds of similar events could occur every day and act as insightful cosmological probes.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1147532
