Rare and brief bursts of cosmic radio waves have puzzled astronomers since they were first detected nearly 10 years ago.

Some suggested these mysterious bursts of energy could be a sign of alien life trying to contact us.

Now the signals have finally been tied to a source - a dwarf galaxy more than 3 billion light years from Earth.

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, were first 'heard' by radio telescopes back in 2007. 

The signal was so temporary and seemingly random that it took years for astronomers to agree it was not a glitch in one of the telescope's instruments, and none of those first observed were ever seen again.

A repeating burst discovered in 2012, however, provided the opportunity for a team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and Cornell University to repeatedly monitor its area of the sky.

'We now know that this particular burst comes from a dwarf galaxy more than three billion light-years from Earth,' said Shami Chatterjee, of Cornell University.

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