Astronomers detect radio signals directly from an exoplanet for the first time
The research has focused on the Beta Pictoris star system
Knowing whether we are alone in the Universe or not is one of the unknowns that generates the most uncertainty among both astronomers and the global population. In search of resolving this question, a team from the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the University of Oregon has announced that it has received a radio signal coming from an exoplanet (a planet outside the Solar System), as reported by the outlet ScienceAlert.
Previously, it was not possible to pinpoint with complete precision the radio signals detected in systems that host planets to the planets themselves, but rather to the stars they orbit around . Now, however, the exoplanet from which the signal originates has been identified .
However, this is not about aliens trying to make contact with Earth . It is a signal coming from the exoplanet's aurora, which is created from charged particles that interact with the conditions of atmospheric and magnetic fields to release energy . Earth itself also has auroras, which appear as the northern and southern lights.
The researchers explain in the study that “although auroral radio bursts are observed on Solar System planets and on some ultracool dwarf planets, until now no radio detection had been unequivocally localized to an extrasolar planet rather than to its host star .”
For the first time the signal comes from an exoplanet and not from a star
“ We detected rapid, recurrent bursts with high circular polarization , as well as persistent emissions, at frequencies from 0.85 to 3.5 GHz. ,” the scientists note. The radio frequencies were observed through the MeerKAT array of radio telescopes, located in South Africa.
On this occasion, the focus of attention was the Beta Pictoris system , located 63.4 light-years away from our planet and made up of the star that gives it its name and three planets orbiting around it: Beta Pictoris b, Beta Pictoris c, and Beta Pictoris d . Using the superbright galactic cores called quasars as a reference, the researchers determined that it was planet b, and not the star, that sent the signal .
“ No known physical mechanism that causes radio emission in early-type stars can explain the observed emission ,” they state. The theory is that Beta Pictoris b has a strong magnetic field . “This constitutes the first direct measurement of the magnetic field strength of an exoplanet, and is consistent with dynamo scaling predictions (the internal processes that generate the magnetic field) for a young and massive giant planet ,” they emphasize.
