“Mysterious Radio Pulses Detected in the Milky Way | A New Cosmic Signal Source Uncovered!”

Mysterious radio pulses from the Milky Way ‘are unlike anything we knew before!!

Over the past decade, scientists have detected a puzzling phenomenon: radio pulses coming from within our Milky Way galaxy that would pulse every two hours, like a cosmic heartbeat. The long radio blasts, which lasted between 30 and 90 seconds, appeared to come from the direction of the Ursa Major constellation, where the Big Dipper is located.

Now, astronomers have zeroed in on the surprising origin of the unusual radio pulses: a dead star, called a white dwarf, that is closely orbiting a small, cool red dwarf star. Red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the cosmos.

The two stars, known collectively as ILTJ1101, are orbiting each other so closely that their magnetic fields interact, emitting what’s known as a long period radio transient, or an LPT. Previously, long radio bursts were only traced to neutron stars, the dense remnants left after a colossal stellar explosion.

But the discovery, described in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature Astronomy, shows the movements of stars within a stellar pair can also create rare LPTs.

“We have for the first time established which stars produce the radio pulses in a mysterious new class of ‘long period radio transients,’” said lead study author Dr. Iris de Ruiter, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Sydney in Australia.

The unprecedented observations of such bright, long radio bursts from this binary star system are just the beginning, astronomers say. The discovery could help scientists better understand what types of stars are capable of producing and sending radio pulses across the cosmos — and in this case, reveal the history and dynamics of two entwined stars.