When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.A schematic of the ASKAP J1745-5051 showing the compact white dwarf at the heart of a nest of magnetic-field lines, and a stream of matter flowing onto it from its companion red dwarf, which also has a magnetic field. | Credit: Carl Knox (OzGrav/Swinburne) and Dr Joshua Preston Pritchard (CSIRO)The clashing magnetic fields of a white dwarf star and its neighboring red dwarf star are the source of signals from space that have remained a puzzle for over 20 years, radio astronomers in Australia have found.The signals, or long-period radio transients, are a class of celestial radio emissions discovered in 2005. Most radio-producing objects release bursts that last for mere seconds or less, but long-period radio transients, about a dozen of which are known, produce radio waves in bursts lasting from minutes to over an hour.AdvertisementAdvertisementSpeculation had focused on highly magnetic pulsars called magnetars as the origin of these radio bursts, but now new research led by Kovi Rose of the University of Sydney, using the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope, has shown that symbiotic binaries are to blame for at least some long-period radio transients.Symbiotic binaries feature a compact object — usually a white dwarf, which is the core remains of a sun-like star — stealing matter from a close companion star. This scenario often leads to a nova explosion when too much material accretes onto the surface of the white dwarf.”Long-period radio transients have puzzled astronomers for years,” said Rose, who is a postgrad student, in a statement. “Now we’ve been able to show that the source for one of these transients comes from a white dwarf actively pulling material from a companion star.”The system in question has been catalogued as ASKAP J1745-5051, and features a white dwarf that is about the diameter of Earth but a mass similar to that of our sun, accreting matter from a red dwarf star with a mass just a tenth of our …
