A team from Curtin University has identified a remarkable burst of energy from a binary system, revealing insights into a rare cosmic phenomenon. The source, designated GLEAM-X J0704-37, consists of a low-mass red dwarf star and a white dwarf remnant, located 5,000 light-years from Earth at the edge of the Milky Way.
This discovery, made using data from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), marks the longest-period example of long-period radio transients, which emit bright energy pulses every three hours lasting between 30 and 60 seconds. First noted in 2006, these radio transients have puzzled astronomers, who struggled to determine their origins due to their proximity to dense star fields.
Natasha Hurley-Walker, a member of the discovery team, emphasized the challenge of identifying these transients amidst numerous stars. However, GLEAM-X J0704-37's location in a sparsely populated region allowed the team to pinpoint its source with the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa.
Further investigation with the Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) in Chile confirmed that the emitting star is an M-class red dwarf. Despite their prevalence, M dwarfs alone do not produce the energy observed, leading researchers to propose that the red dwarf is in a binary system with a white dwarf.
The interaction of strong magnetic fields within the system is believed to generate periodic energy blasts akin to those from pulsars. The findings suggest that GLEAM-X J0704-37 has been active for a decade, indicating that many more long-period radio transients may exist in archival data from various telescopes.
MWA Director Steven Tingay highlighted the significance of the MWA's extensive 55-petabyte archive, which serves as a vital resource for future astronomical discoveries. The team's research was published on November 26 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.