The Earth is sometimes hit by intense radio signals that last for perhaps a mere millisecond, and yet the events that generate such signals may release as much energy as the Sun puts out in several weeks. What are these events? Some have described them as “cosmic fireworks” that flash briefly and disappear.

This is one of the hottest topics in astronomy today, and Taiwan is an active participant in the research.

 

This twinkle’s for real

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star” is something we all grow up singing, but we understand that real stars don’t actually twinkle. It’s just an illusion caused by refraction of starlight as it passes through the Earth’s atmosphere. But the universe does indeed wink at us every time it sends out a “fast radio burst” (FRB), which is short in duration but extremely powerful. More surprisingly still, most of these explosions occur outside the Milky Way Galaxy in deep space, beyond the range of optical telescopes. To detect FRB signals coming from such distances, mankind can only rely on radio telescopes.

After FRBs were determined in 2007 to be a cosmic phenomenon, they quickly came to rank alongside black holes and neutron stars as one of the hottest research topics in astronomy. Each FRB signal arrives on Earth after a journey of billions of years that may have started before the birth of our solar system. Indeed, it may be a message from the primordial phase of the universe itself. That is why researchers hope to figure out what FRBs are all about, and what they can tell us about the nature of the universe.

 

Capturing FRBs

But detecting FRB events is not easy, because it is generally impossible to know in advance the timing and location of their occurrence.

A conventional large dish antenna is highly sensitive but has a narrow field of view. Using it to watch for FRBs is like taking a zoom lens camera to a baseball game, filming a tiny part of the field at maximum focal length, and hoping a fly ball will pass through at just the right spot. Relying on luck in this way doesn’t sit well with insatiably curious scientists.

In surveying the sky, therefore, astronomers have decided in recent years that surveying the deepest possible reaches of space is not so important as increasing the survey area. The US, the Netherlands, and China have all begun using “phased-array” radio telescopes, which capture larger fields of view and are thus able to scan broader swaths of the sky for cosmic phenomena. Taiwan became involved in this work in 2022.

 

Taiwan joins in

The Bustling Universe Radio Survey Telescope in Taiwan (BURSTT), sponsored by the Academia Sinica, is the first sky survey project in the world intended primarily to capture FRBs. The BURSTT team has set up a phased-array telescope in the hills of Northern Taiwan, plus a number of outrigger arrays elsewhere in Taiwan as well as various offshore locations. Cross-correlation of data from the main array and the outrigger arrays enables more precise localization of the sources of FRBs.

The July 2025 issue of Science magazine included an article on the BURSTT project that had high praise for Taiwan’s innovative approach to the study of FRBs. This shows that Taiwan has the ability to take part in cutting-edge astronomy research, and that we are already ahead of the pack in at least one respect in this new field.

 

Another window on the universe

Pen Ue-li, director of the Academia Sinica’s Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, describes the situation as follows: “In the past we could mostly just see stars near the Milky Way, but FRBs have enabled us for the first time to ‘see’ individual stars far off in deep space.”

FRBs are among the most difficult signals in the universe to detect and to understand, but for mankind they represent a window upon the depths of the universe. Scientists around the world are working to find more clues, and Taiwan has an opportunity to make important and substantive contributions as we explore this uncharted realm. 

 

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