And we still don't know where they come from. Stars from a distant nebula. Pitris / iStock The best things in life are fleeting, and in radio astronomy, they are also among the brightest ever seen. A telescope in British Columbia detected more than 500 new fast radio bursts in its first year of operation, between 2018 and 2019, according to a briefing streamed live via YouTube of an American Astronomical Society Meeting on Wednesday. No one is sure what creates the fast radio bursts (FRBs), but this represents a significant step in continuing to map the universe. The growing catalog of ultra-high-energy fast radio bursts