Clancy James

Somewhere deep in space, a radio beacon flashes for a fraction of a second, and then goes dark. Such signals are called fast radio bursts. They come from other galaxies and last from microseconds to milliseconds.

A storm in the upper atmosphere lasts a few millionths of a second. A cosmic ray, a proton or a helium nucleus, strikes air molecules, sending a swarm of particles downward. Most of them stay together, but occasionally one particle gains so much energy that it surges ahead.