ASTROPHYSICS
Fast Radio Bursts Are Getting Weirder: New Observations Suggest an Unknown Emission Mechanism
Fast radio bursts have been the astrophysical puzzle of the decade. Now a new catalog of 1,200 FRBs from the CHIME telescope reveals polarization patterns that none of the leading theoretical frameworks predicted. The bursts show a repeating elliptical polarization signature that doesn't fit magnetar flares, compact binary mergers, or any of the dozen other proposed sources. The data is clean. The problem is real.