Kathmandu, October 12. Scientists have recently observed mysterious radio waves from stars that indicate the presence of unknown planets.

In the research article published in the journal “Nature”, Astronomers from the University of Queensland have described that in all solar systems, magnetic fields of the orbiting planets interact with solar winds, resulting in the production of powerful radio waves that travel through a long stretch in the universe. 

Lead Author Joseph Callingham said, “Our own Earth has aurorae, commonly recognized here as the northern and southern lights, that also emit powerful radio waves – this is from the interaction of the planet’s magnetic field with the solar wind.”

For the first time, radio waves from another solar system were made using the Low-Frequency Array radio telescope, the world’s largest radio telescope in the Netherlands. The team of astronomers studied radio signals from 19 distant red dwarf stars that were previously considered to be magnetically inactive

The signals indicate that the solar systems of the dwarf stars were located some 165 light-years away.

Co-author of the paper Astronomer Dr. Benjamin Pope opined, “this discovery is an important step for radio astronomy and could potentially lead to the discovery of planets throughout the galaxy.”

Click here to read the detailed research article entitled “The population of M dwarfs observed at low radio frequencies” published in the Nature Astronomy Journal on October 11, 2021.