A radio burst that lasted less than a millisecond and was first discovered last year was more powerful than originally believed.

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The signal was a fast radio burst or FRB. The first one was discovered in 2007, but there have been hundreds, if not nearly a thousand, documented over the past 16 years, CNN and CBS News reported.

Scientists didn’t know exactly where most of the radio waves came from, but they did know they came from far, far away — until now.

FRB20220610A was extremely short, but according to a study published in the journal Science, had a burst equivalent to that of the sun over 30 years, CNN reported.

Scientists were able to pinpoint where FRB20220610A came from: a group of two or three galaxies that are merging, interacting and forming new stars.

It is believed FRBs come from magnetars, distant dead stars that are the most magnetic items in the universe, CBS News reported.

The galaxies are so far away that it took 8 billion years for the radio burst to reach us.

“Using ASKAP’s array of (radio) dishes, we were able to determine precisely where the burst came from,” study co-author Dr. Stuart Ryder, an astronomer at Macquarie University in Australia, said in a statement to CNN. “Then we used (the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope) in Chile to search for the source galaxy, finding it to be older and (farther) away than any other FRB source found to date and likely within a small group of merging galaxies.”

The signal was also more broken up, or dispersed, compared to FRBs, meaning that it had a bumpy ride to get to Earth, Nature reported. That supported the theory that the further away a bust comes from, the more dispersed it will be. The dispersion also helps scientists map the universe and see how it evolved.