A new Harvard University study has discovered that bizarre flashes of comic light could be coming from a massive radio transmitter built by an alien race. According to two Harvard astronomers, the mysterious deep-space radio signals, konwn as fast radio bursts (FRBs), could be the result of a transmitter used to accelerate spacecraft to near light speeds for interstellar travel. FRBs are a mysterious phenomenon that lasts only a few milliseconds, but release more energy in that short space of time than the sun does in an entire month. Space.com reports: Astronomers have catalogued just 20 or so of these brief, superbright flashes, which are known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), since the first one was detected in 2007. FRBs seem to be coming from galaxies billions of light-years away, but what’s causing them remains a mystery. “Fast radio bursts are exceedingly bright given their short duration and origin at great distances, and we haven’t identified a possible natural source with any confidence,” study co-author Avi Loeb, a theorist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement Thursday (March 9). “An artificial origin is worth contemplating and checking.” One potential artificial origin, according to the new study, might be a gigantic radio transmitter built by [...]