Using Fast Radio Bursts to Detect Gas in the Milky Way.

University of Toronto researcher Amanda Cook has used fast radio bursts (FRBs) to weigh the atmosphere of the Milky Way galaxy. FRBs generate brief flashes of radio waves and are considered one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy. Cook used the dispersion method to measure how much gas is present in the Milky Way's halo and discovered that it contains much less gas than previous models had predicted. FRB signals could be used to study the structure of everything that the FRB signal passes through on its long journey, including the material between galaxies, the halos of other galaxies, and the gas inside of galaxies.