Expected

Fast radio bursts are still a mystery, but new observations of this strange phenomenon may actually help astronomers learn more about our own galactic ...

[briles_34](https://twitter.com/briles_34) on Twitter. So there's likely much more to come out of that California valley to help unravel the story of FRBs and more. "As it turns out, more than 80% of baryonic matter — not dark matter, but actually matter like you and me — is invisible in the nearby universe," Ravi said. Data from the DSA revealed that our Milky Way has far less regular matter than astronomers expected. In new research presented in a press conference at the 241st American Astronomical Society meeting, a team of astronomers from Caltech reported measuring our [Milky Way](https://www.space.com/19915-milky-way-galaxy.html)'s mass using an FRB — and it turns out our galaxy is lighter than expected. This unexpected lightness could hint at blowouts in our galaxy's past. In 2022, its first year of operations, alone, DSA-110 helped astronomers discover 30 FRBs with precise locations, more than matching the 21 scientists had previously traced in the years since the first FRB was detected in 2007. The pinpointing capability is particularly important, Ravi said. Their goal is to pinpoint the location on the sky of each FRB they observe, to help figure out where these flashes originate. But even the initial DSA is a powerful instrument for observing FRBs. And not only are these observations giving astronomers clues into the mystery of FRBs, they also reveal invisible matter all around us. Surveying a large amount of sky means processing a lot of data, so the array's computers are processing 24 gigabytes per second.