Researchers at CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope have detected a series of mysterious radio energy pulses emanating from deep space.

The surprising finding, confirmed by a team of scientists from institutions in Australia, the USA, UK, Germany and Italy, has been published in the most recent issue of the journal Science. Dan Thornton is a PhD student with CSIRO, the University of Manchester and the lead author on the Science paper, he says, "A single burst of radio emission of unknown origin was detected outside our galaxy about six years ago but no one was certain what it was or even if it was real... we have spent the last four years searching for more of these explosive, short-duration radio bursts."

"Staggeringly, we estimate there could be one of these flashes going off every ten seconds somewhere in the sky," said research team member Dr Simon Johnston, Head of Astrophysics at CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science. The discovery has started a concentrated effort to track down more such pulses to determine their origin and cause. Information gathered from the skewing of frequencies as they travel through space indicates the radio pulses are coming from about 11 billion light-years away.

Researchers have ruled out the flashes originating from phenomena such as gamma-ray bursts, the merger of two neutron stars, merging black holes, or evaporating black holes. The lack of gamma or x-rays proved these pulses are something different.

Scientists may have more information soon with CSIRO’s Australian SKA Pathfinder telescope now under construction in Western Australia. The new telescope will be running a major survey for transient radio sources like the ones just found at Parkes.