Because of Earth's off-center location in the Milky Way, she says, the symmetric distribution argues against a
burst source associated with our own galaxy unless the bursts originate in a huge halo whose inner diameter is double that of the Milky Way.
In his paper Maley mentions three that seem to have come from a gamma-ray
burst source in the supernova remnant N49.
"We've seen this effect in other fast radio
burst sources before, but in this case the effect is 500 times larger than what we've seen at other sources," Hessels said.
But if the
burst sources are so far away, then the energy released in a burst is unimaginably high.
Conversely, if the intensity distribution does not follow the -3/2 power law, the burst sources are not homogeneously distributed.
The burst sources might be more distant that those in the heliocentric model but still closer than the boundary of the galactic disk in the solar neighborhood.
If the burst sources are not galactic disk objects, as now seems likely, we are left with only three possible models." heliocentric, extended galactic halo, and cosmological.
The next step will be to try to pin down more precisely where the
burst sources are located and to try to find radiation of lower energy that may be emanating from the same sources.