New insights are emerging into one of astronomy’s most perplexing signals. An international research team led in part by scientists from the University of Hong Kong has found strong evidence that at least some fast radio bursts come from stars locked in binary systems rather than single stars. The work centers on a repeating fast radio burst called FRB 20220529, also known as FRB 220529A. Using China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, known as FAST, and Australia’s Parkes radio telescope, researchers tracked the source for nearly two years. Their results were published in the journal Science. Professor Bing Zhang, an astrophysicist at the University of Hong Kong and founding director of the Hong Kong Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, served as a corresponding author on the study. He and his colleagues report what they describe as the first decisive evidence that a repeating fast radio burst source can orbit a companion star. “This finding provides a definitive clue to the origin of at least some repeating FRBs,” Zhang said. “The evidence strongly supports a binary system …