The Cosmic Mystery of Fast Radio Bursts

The cosmos directly interacts with Earth through various signals in the form of electromagnetic waves (light), elementary particles, and gravitational waves. A couple of decades ago, radio astronomers found extremely bright flashes in their data that only lasted a few thousandths of a second. These pulses, named Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), were found to be coming from outside of our Galaxy and can be so energetic that they radiate a billion times more energy than our Sun does within a millisecond. While more than 20,000 bursts have been detected on Earth since FRBs were first discovered, their origins still remain a mystery. In this talk, I will present a brief history of FRBs, introduce how they have altered our understanding of our Universe, and explore some theories on the cosmic sources that could be powering them. I will also discuss how I build theoretical models and use computational tools to interpret the observed properties, and infer the mysterious nature of FRBs in my own research.