Planet from another galaxy constantly broadcasting radio waves to Earth?

This is the closest source of extragalactic radio waves ever recorded, the origin of which could be a neutron star companion or even a black hole.

The signal arrived at Earth in the form of radio bursts (FRBs), named FRB 20200120E. An international team of scientists led by Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) followed the clue and found it was emitted from a galaxy called M81, 11.7 million light-years away.

Galaxy M81

Given that distance, it becomes the closest source of extragalactic radio waves ever detected, up to 40 times closer than the second-ranked source.

Going deeper into the galaxy M81, they discovered that the signal led to a globular cluster. This is surprising because according to previously formulated theories, radio flashes must come from something violent, for example a collision between neutron stars, magnetic stars. are remnants of these giant star.

But globular clusters are a peaceful world of many low-mass stars. This has led to another interesting hypothesis: Stars the size of our Sun or smaller can still collapse into white dwarfs, and that tiny white dwarf still has enough mass to form a neutron star Later. Clusters are considered a "fossil" form of the universe, which is quiet and old. No one expected a fast, powerful radio burst to emerge from there.

But conventionally known ancient star clusters would hardly contain one of these objects. According to the authors, this new discovery will either lead to the discovery of a new formation mechanism for these star clusters, or an entirely new source of radio bursts.

There are many theories put forward by the team about what emits the radio waves: it could even be another planet, coincidentally parallel to a neutron star; it could be an accreting black hole, or a white dwarf-small neutron star pair.

Writing in their online publication on arXiv, the authors believe that whatever it specifically comes from, it will be a finding enough to "shake" everything. This new study has only found the parent world - galaxy M81 - but the authors are still working to identify that particular one. There are many opportunities, because this radio source is still constantly sending new signals to Earth.

Radio bursts are considered one of the greatest mysteries in astrophysics. It is always "well taken care of" because in addition to assuming the signal is from an aggressive object, it is also suspected that some radio flashes are signals of aliens.