Scientists discover mysterious radio signals coming from deep space every eight minutes

Astronomers trace the pulses to a rotating white dwarf circling a Sun-like G-type star 5,000 light-years away.

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'mysterious signals'

SUMMARY

Scientists have identified a star system 5,000 light-years away that emits radio pulses every eight minutes. The signals, from a system called GPM J071507?114153, were traced to a rotating white dwarf orbiting a Sun-like G-type star.

The discovery was made with the Murchison Widefield Array and confirmed using South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope. The white dwarf completes one rotation every eight minutes, and researchers tracked its orbital motion to locate the radio source.

This system joins a rare class of long-period transients that switch radio emission on and off over minutes or hours.