Question 1

True or false: All fast radio bursts are extragalactic, meaning they come from outside the Milky Way galaxy.

Accepted Answer

False. This is false because FRB 200428 was detected from within the Milky Way, proving that at least some bursts originate in our own galaxy.

Question 2

True or false: Some fast radio bursts repeat, while most are one-off events that never flash again.

Accepted Answer

True. Repeating FRBs like FRB 121102 have been observed multiple times, but the vast majority are single bursts, suggesting different origins.

Question 3

True or false: The first fast radio burst was discovered in 2007 by astronomers analyzing archival data from the Parkes Observatory.

Accepted Answer

True. Duncan Lorimer and his student David Narkevic found the burst in 2007 while examining 2001 data, earning it the nickname 'Lorimer Burst.'

Question 4

True or false: Fast radio bursts are all caused by alien technology, as some scientists have seriously proposed.

Accepted Answer

False. While one 2017 paper discussed an extraterrestrial origin as a remote possibility, no credible evidence supports it; most FRBs are linked to magnetars or neutron stars.

Question 5

True or false: Fast radio bursts release more energy in a millisecond than the Sun does in an entire year.

Accepted Answer

False. Actually, FRBs release about as much energy as the Sun produces in a few days to a month—not a full year, though still immense.

Question 6

True or false: The closest known fast radio burst originated from a magnetar inside the Milky Way, only about 30,000 light-years away.

Accepted Answer

True. In April 2020, FRB 200428 was traced to a magnetar named SGR 1935+2154 in our galaxy, the first Milky Way FRB source identified.

Question 7

True or false: Scientists have used fast radio bursts to measure the missing matter in the universe between galaxies.

Accepted Answer

True. By analyzing how FRB signals are dispersed by intergalactic electrons, astronomers can calculate the density of 'missing' baryonic matter.

Question 8

True or false: Fast radio bursts have only been detected by radio telescopes on Earth, never by space-based instruments.

Accepted Answer

False. In 2020, the Canadian CHIME telescope detected an FRB from a magnetar in our galaxy, and space-based X-ray telescopes like Fermi also caught it.

Fast Radio Burst Trivia Questions