Long-Xuan Zhang

Since their discovery in 2007, fast radio bursts (FRBs) have teased astrophysicists with their elusive nature. These millisecond signals arrive from distant galaxies and carry colossal energy: for an instant, they radiate as much as the Sun does in a month.

A translator at a meeting keeps getting distracted by every rustle in the room, then suddenly dives into a long monologue by the speaker. That's exactly how the fast radio burst source FRB 20240114A behaves: in one hour, its pulses fire randomly, but over months they line up into a predictable drift.