There are few things more alarming than hearing a mysterious noise and not knowing what it is or what it’s coming from. That’s the kind of thing that taps into our survival instincts as human beings. Even when it’s not a matter of survival, finding the origin of a strange noise is something that we can almost feel compelled to do, especially if it’s coming from somewhere like space. For the last decade or so, scientists have been picking up odd radio emissions from an area of space that really shouldn’t be giving off pulses like this, but it looks like we finally know why.
Every two hours, something has been transmitting a radio signal from somewhere around the big dipper. As strange as it may sound, picking up radio signals from space isn’t really abnormal. For example, scientists have previously been able to attribute long form radio pulses from neutron stars. This is reassuring to know considering how easy it might be to jump to a conclusion of an actual life form broadcasting, but no, stars can do it too. But this wasn’t coming from a neutron star.
What researchers were able to find though were two dead stars, a red and white dwarf, in a very tight orbit around each other. In fact, the orbit between them is so tight that the natural magnetic fields of these stars are coming into contact and potentially creating these radio signals. Further research is being conducted but some of the details of the findings have been published in “Nature Astronomy.” Sure, this may seem pretty mundane of an explanation when compared to the idea of aliens blasting out music every two hours, but it’s new to scientists.
All the bits and pieces of information we pick up along the way when it comes to outer space only helps further our understanding of the universe. What may seem inconsequential to daily life could be instrumental in finding out more about how the universe expands and how celestial bodies move and operate. And maybe one day if we do get a communication blast from intelligent life on a distant planet, we won’t accidentally mistake it for a couple of dead stars orbiting around each other.
