Scientists discover mysterious radio signals coming every eight minutes from deep space
An unusual star system that emits mysterious radio signals every eight minutes has been discovered in deep space.Astronomers in Australia have linked the regular radio pulses to an unusual pairing of celestial bodies 5,000 light-years from Earth.One is a dead star that spins every eight minutes, and the other is a star similar to our own sun.They explained that the newly discovered system, known as GPM J071507−114153, consists of two stars orbiting each other: a white dwarf – the dense core left behind when a star dies – and a G-type star similar to the sun.It is the first time radio pulses have been detected from a white dwarf orbiting a sun-like star, according to a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy.Researchers at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth, Western Australia, explained that such pulses are usually observed in systems with smaller and cooler red dwarf stars, meaning the discovery breaks new ground.Study lead author Dr Sam McSweeney said: “This is the first time the pulses are clear enough to see the white dwarf moving in its orbit around its companion, so we know that the pulsations are coming from a region close to the white dwarf, or possibly even from the white dwarf itself.”Dr McSweeney, who made the discovery while working as a researcher at ICRAR, says such types of stellar pairs belong to a broader class of objects known as long-period transients (LPTs), producing radio signals that switch on and off over intervals ranging from minutes to hours.Around a dozen have been detected since the first was discovered by the same ICRAR team in 2021, and astronomers are still working to understand them.While several previously discovered LPT systems contain a white dwarf and another star, it has remained unclear which of the two stars was generating the radio pulses.The research team processed more than 100 hours of radio data at the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre to validate and understand the...