Swinburne University PhD student Emily Petroff watched the fast radio burst, which lasted about a millisecond but gave off as much energy as the Sun does in a day, using the Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales.

The first burst was discovered by chance in 2007 by astronomers combing the Parkes data archive. Six more bursts have been found by Parkes since and a seventh by the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico.