A fast radio burst can release as much energy in a millisecond as the Sun emits in three days, yet by the time it reaches Earth the signal is a thousand times weaker than a cell phone broadcasting from the Moon. This episode explores how astronomers study a phenomenon that vanishes almost as soon as it appears, starting with the 2007 Lorimer Burst, a 30 Jansky spike lasting under five milliseconds that Duncan Lorimer and David Narkevic found in archival 2001 data from Australia's Parkes Observatory.

The hosts explain how dispersion measure proved the signal came from billions of light years away and turned every FRB into a cosmic measuring tape, how the repeating FRB 121102 and the 16.35-day cycle of FRB 180916 shattered the cataclysm theory, and why Faraday rotation points to extreme magnetic environments rather than alien light sails. The ...