Scientists and astronomers have made a major discovery that explains a strange space signal coming from our Milky Way galaxy. For the past 10 years, they noticed radio pulses coming from the Ursa Major constellation (where the Big Dipper is). These signals came every two hours and lasted between 30 to 90 seconds, like a slow heartbeat from space, CNN reported.
Now, researchers have found that these pulses are coming from a pair of stars. One of them is a dead star called a white dwarf. The other one is a small, cool red dwarf.
These two stars are very close and orbit one another every 125.5 minutes. Because they are so close, their magnetic fields interact, which causes these long radio pulses. This type of event is known as a long-period radio transient (LPT).
Earlier, such signals were thought to come only from neutron stars, which are the remains of massive stars after an explosion. But, this finding proves that even white dwarfs can create such signals.
Dr. Iris de Ruiter and her team used data from a network of radio telescopes in Europe called LOFAR to find this. They looked at older recordings and found the signals hiding in plain sight. They then used telescopes to confirm the discovery.
These radio pulses are different from Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), which are very short and powerful. LPTs are weaker but last longer. Scientists believe many such signals may have been missed in the past.
What the scientists say
“At the moment, the radio pulses have disappeared completely, but these might turn back on again at a later time,” CNN quoted de Ruiter as saying.
Dr. Kaustubh Rajwade is a coauthor of the study. He is a radio astronomer in the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford.
“Each discovery is telling us something new about the extreme astrophysical objects that can create the radio emission we see,” he said.
