Cosmic radio pulses repeating every few minutes or hours, known as long-period transients, have puzzled astronomers since their discovery in 2022. Our new study, published in Nature Astronomy, might finally add some clarity.
Radio astronomers are very familiar with pulsars, a type of rapidly rotating neutron star. To us watching the skies from Earth, these objects appear to pulse because powerful radio beams from their poles sweep our telescopes — much like a cosmic lighthouse.
The slowest pulsars rotate in just a few seconds — this is known as their period. But in recent years, long-period transients have been discovered as well. These have periods from 18 minutes to more than six hours.
From everything we know about neutron stars, they shouldn’t be able to produce radio waves while spinning this slowly. So, is there something wrong with physics?
Well, neutron stars aren’t the only compact stellar remnant on the block, so maybe they’re not the stars of this story after all. Our new paper presents evidence that the longest-lived long-period transient, GPM J1839-10, is actually a white dwarf star. It’s producing powerful radio beams with the help of a stellar companion, implying others may be doing the same.
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