The astronomers discovered a binary system containing a white dwarf (blue) and red dwarf (orange) that together create radio impulses that we can see here on earth. Credit: Daniëlle Futselaar/ArtSource.nl
Astronomes have finally identified the source of mysterious radio waves with a deep space, tracing the signals to an unusual stellar couple blocked in a rapid orbit, flashing their position to listen to the universe.
In the research published on March 12 in Astronomy of natureA team of astrophysicists has finally found the source of strange radio explosions. Call ILT J1101 + 5521, the source sends explosions lasting 30 and 90 seconds every two hours. He was first identified in the low frequency array data (lofar) of the radio by the main author Iris de Ruiter, then working on his research doctorate. at the University of Amsterdam. He is now post -End of the Sydney University.
Two tango
De Ruiter, says that IlT J1101 + 5521 signals were detected for the first time about three years ago. Since the radio source is periodic – which means that it is not always on – there must be something to trigger explosions.
So, De Ruiter and his colleagues went in search of what the area might be observing with further telescopes. They discovered a binary system containing a dwarf star M and a white dwarf, whose orbital period combines with the period of radio impulses. The dwarves M, also called red dwarfs, are smaller lower stars of the sun; This has a mass about two tenths of that of our sun. And the white dwarfs are the naked nudes of stars similar to the sun, everything that remains after the star lives its full life and dies.
“We discovered that the radio impulses period seems to be exactly the same as the orbital period of the system, so it takes about two hours so that the two stars orbit one around the other and every two hours we see the radio wrist,” says De Ruiter. “This leads us strongly to believe that it has to do with a sort of interaction between these two stars.”
However, he adds, “I don’t think we really know what’s going on.”
A strange system
A white dwarf combined with a red dwarf is not so unusual. Most of the stars are available in binary couples, and often one is larger and dies before the other. But a couple of stars in a two -hour orbit AND Unusual and could have something to do with these radio impulses.
“There are several evolutionary paths” that could have formed this particular binary, De Ruiter says: “But the most probable is that they started much more separately. Then, when the Sun -type star died and became a white dwarf, it started to feed the red dwarf. So maybe there was a little growth and this allowed the two to get closer to more closely.”
But during a single handful of times when astronomers have detected these impulses, the system has shown any sign of growth – although, adds De Ruiter, it could be that any sign of growth is too weak to be resumed.
Astronomes are not unrelated to radio impulses from space. But in general they are much shorter and come from a different type of source: the neutron stars, which are formed only when the very huge stars explode like a supernova. Neutron stars have incredibly powerful magnetic fields, which channe down beams of radiation that, when they sweep on earth every time the star runs, produce a short impulse.
Then there are quick radio explosions (FRBS), strange, long and long signals also think they come from neutron-foal stars to act with their own companions. “More speculatively, the existence of ILT J1101 + 5521 can provide an analogy for the understanding of periodically active rapid radios sources, which could come from highly magnetized neutron stars that interact with a huge star companion”, suggests the study.
Gone silent
The search for the cause has been made more difficult by the fact that the radio impulses are now silent.
“At the moment we don’t really see any radio impulse,” says De Ruiter. He thinks that this could be due to different possibilities: perhaps the impulses have stopped, or the system is going through a sort of transition, or perhaps the impulses have just become too weak to be detected for the moment.
To find out more, astronomers need J1101 to kick again or to identify other sources such as similar binary systems. And perhaps the answer will not come enough from the current generation of telescopes, but the next one could offer the sensitivity necessary to reveal the mystery.
