Astronomers have been scratching their heads over bursts of radio waves that repeat at oddly long intervals since 2022.
Now, for the first time, researchers have traced one of these mysterious signals back to its source.
The suspect is a red dwarf star likely paired with a white dwarf—but that’s not all.
Scientists Find The Suspect
It turns out the radio waves aren’t from the red dwarf itself but likely from its unseen companion.
Researchers suspect this companion is a white dwarf, not a neutron star or black hole, as its orbit wasn’t disrupted by an explosion.
Dubbed GLEAM-X J0704-37, this signal pulses every 2.9 hours, making it the slowest “long-period radio transient” discovered so far.
What’s Causing The Radio Bursts?
So, what’s causing the radio waves? It’s likely the red dwarf’s stellar wind—streams of charged particles—interacting with the white dwarf’s strong magnetic field.
Think of it as an interstellar tango, generating radio waves similar to Earth’s auroras.
