Astronomers have traced a mysterious type of repeating cosmic signal to an unusual pair of stars, providing the strongest evidence yet for the source of one of astronomy's most puzzling phenomena.
The discovery was made by an international research team led by scientists at the University of Sydney using CSIRO's ASKAP radio telescope. Their findings identify the origin of a rare class of objects known as long-period radio transients, mysterious bursts of radio waves that have puzzled astronomers since they were first detected in only a handful of locations across the Milky Way.
The results were published in Nature Astronomy.
Lead author Kovi Rose, a PhD student in the University of Sydney's School of Physics and CSIRO, said the team was finally able to connect one of these enigmatic signals to a specific type of stellar system.
"For the first time we have pinpointed the origin of these signals, confirming the source to be a 'cataclysmic variable', or an accreting white dwarf star," said Mr. Rose.
