According to a study published in the 9 January 2020 issue of the journal Nature,[1] CHIME astronomers, in cooperation with the radio telescopes at European VLBI Network (VLBI) and the optical telescope Gemini North on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, were able to pinpoint the source of FRB 180916 to a location within a Milky Way-like galaxy named SDSS J015800.28+654253.0.

[4] Prior to the publication of the study in Nature,[1] only two types of FRBs had been observed: non-repeaters and repeaters.

In contrast, repeaters are not one-off, but instead manifest recurring unpredictable, sporadic, and irregular radiation bursts; their sources are less well understood.

[10] On 7 June 2020, astronomers from Jodrell Bank Observatory reported possible evidence that FRB 121102 exhibits the same radio burst behavior ("radio bursts observed in a window lasting approximately 90 days followed by a silent period of 67 days") every 157 days, suggesting that the bursts may be associated with "the orbital motion of a massive star, a neutron star or a black hole".

In March 2021, astronomers reported that the area producing pulses of FRB 180916 is about 1 kilometre (0.62 miles) in scale, based on studies at extremely short timescales.