#2886: Fast Radio Bursts explain

[Cueball standing behind a lectern, with a poster hung from the ceiling behind him, raising his hand]

Potential sources of fast radio bursts:

(1) Energetic stellar-sized astrophysical objects floating in space

Cueball: We’re pretty sure this is what most of them are.

[Close-up on Cueball, not raising hand.]

(2) Microwave ovens in the observatory break room

Cueball: This was some of them, oops. (Petroff et. al., 2015)

(3) Energetic steller-sized microwave ovens floating in space

Cueball: We think this one is unlikely.

[Zoom out back to perspective of first panel.]

(4) Energetic stellar-sized astrophysical objects in the observatory break room

Cueball: This is almost certainly not it, though we’re sending a grad student to double-check.