Astronomers and engineers at CSIRO developed the specialised system, CRACO, for their ASKAP radio telescope to rapidly detect mysterious fast radio bursts and other space phenomena.

With results published a couple of months ago in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia showcasing the discovery of two fast radio bursts and two sporadically-emitting neutron stars, and improved location data of four pulsars, enabled by the new technology. They have since gone on to find more than twenty fast radio bursts.

CSIRO astronomer and engineer Dr Keith Bannister who, along with his team, developed the instrument, says the scale of observation enabled by the new technology is enormous.

CRACO has been engineered to sift through the trillions of pixels received by the telescope to find anomalies, alerting researchers the moment it spots something out of the ordinary, allowing them to quickly follow up to obtain more data and complete their own analysis.