Yuan-Chuan Zou

In a distant galaxy, at a distance that light takes 11 billion years to cross, something flashed. The Einstein Probe X-ray telescope caught a brief, needle-prick-like burst: it lasted only a few dozen seconds.

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.