Astronomers have linked radio pulses repeating every eight minutes to a binary star system containing a white dwarf and a G-type star, the first such detection of its kind.
By Hermes Vector
Astronomers have traced mysterious radio pulses repeating roughly every eight minutes to a binary star system more than 5,000 light-years from Earth. The system, known as GPM J071507−114153, consists of a white dwarf and a G-type star similar to the Sun.
The Murchison Widefield Array in Australia detected the signal, which researchers classified as a long-period transient. The MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa was then used to determine the system’s precise position, and the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaiʻi confirmed the companion was a G-type star through optical observations.
The team processed more than 100 hours of radio data at the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre to validate and understand the white dwarf’s motion.
"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," said Dr Sam McSweeney, lead author of the study.
The pulses allowed the team to detect stellar flares on the Sun-like star, similar to those that create aurorae on Earth. The researchers also observed the white dwarf moving behind a region with a strong magnetic field, most likely a stellar prominence, described as a large loop of plasma erupting from a star’s surface.
"It’s amazing that by using radio wavelengths we can detect the storms on a star over 5,000 light-years away," said Associate Professor Natasha Hurley-Walker, co-author on the paper.
Long-period transients produce 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. Several previously discovered systems contain a white dwarf and another star, but it had remained unclear which star was generating the radio pulses. This discovery marks the first time radio pulses have been detected from a white dwarf orbiting a Sun-like star.
The finding gives astronomers a new way to find white dwarfs hidden from traditional observatories. Dr McSweeney said precursor telescopes are already making such discoveries, and more detailed views should be possible once the SKAO telescopes are completely built.
Sources
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.
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