For the first time a team of scientists has tracked down the location of a fast radio burst (FRB), confirming that these short but spectacular flashes of radio waves originate in the distant universe. The breakthrough, published today in the journal Nature, was made using CSIRO radio telescopes in eastern Australia and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan's Subaru telescope in Hawaii. "Our discovery opens the way to working out what makes these bursts," Dr Simon Johnston, Head of Astrophysics at CSIRO and a member of the research team said.

FRBs emit as much energy in one millisecond as the sun emits in 10,000 years, but the physical phenomenon that causes them is unknown.

This, and their apparently huge distances, have tantalised scientists since their discovery in 2007. Only 16 bursts have ever been found but astronomers estimate that they might occur 10,000 times a day across the entire sky.

Today's paper in Nature records a burst from a host galaxy around six billion light-years away.

Importantly, it also confirms that FRBs can be used to find matter in the universe that had 'gone missing'.

Astronomers think the contents of the universe are 70 per cent dark energy, 25 per cent dark matter and 5 per cent ordinary matter.