WORLDTECHAstronomers discover a dead star spinning every 8 minutes and sending mysterious radio pulses
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What happened
Scientists have discovered a strange stellar pair more than 5,000 light-years away, where a dead star spinning every eight minutes produces mysterious radio pulses while orbiting a Sun-like star. The breakthrough also revealed massive magnetic storms on the companion star, offering fresh clues to one of astronomy's emerging mysteries.
Their findings reveal a previously unseen combination of stars producing radio pulses and offer new clues about the origins of some of the Milky Way's most puzzling signals. Until now, astronomers had detected similar radio pulses in systems containing white dwarfs and smaller, cooler stars known as red dwarfs.
This marks the first time such signals have been identified in a system where a white dwarf orbits a Sun-like star. A Rare Star System With Mysterious Radio Pulses The newly identified pair belongs to an unusual group of astronomical objects called long-period transients (LPTs).
The discovery was made by researchers at the Curtin University branch of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).
The stellar system, designated GPM J071507−114153, contains a white dwarf and a G-type star orbiting one another. A white dwarf is the extremely dense remnant of a star that has exhausted its nuclear fuel and shed its outer layers.
Its companion belongs to the same general category of stars as the Sun. These objects produce radio emissions that appear and disappear over periods lasting anywhere from several minutes to hours.