Are aliens giving us a wave? Radio signals detected for first time

Combining data reveals the location of stars, and planets that orbit them.

The international team focused on red dwarfs — long-lived stars billions of years older than our sun around which life could have thrived.

They are known to have intense magnetic activity that drives stellar flares and radio emission.

But some magnetically inactive stars also showed up, challenging conventional understanding.

The signals are coming from the magnetic connection of the stars and their planets, similar to the link between Jupiter and its moon, Io.

Lead author Dr Joseph Callingham, of Leiden University in The Netherlands, said: ‘Our own Earth has aurorae, commonly recognised here as the northern and southern lights.

‘They also emit powerful radio waves: this is from the interaction of the planet’s magnetic field with the solar wind.

‘But in the case of aurorae from Jupiter, they’re much stronger as its volcanic moon Io is blasting material out into space, filling Jupiter’s environment with particles that drive unusually powerful aurorae.

‘Our model for this radio emission from our stars is a scaled-up version of Jupiter and Io, with a planet enveloped in the magnetic field of a star, feeding material into vast currents that similarly power bright aurorae.

‘It’s a spectacle that has attracted our attention from light years away.’

The researchers now plan to confirm the findings in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Dr Pope said: ‘We can’t be 100 per cent sure the four stars we think have planets are indeed planet hosts.

‘But we can say a planet-star interaction is the best explanation for what we’re seeing.

‘Follow-up observations have ruled out planets more massive than Earth — but there’s nothing to say that a smaller planet wouldn’t do this.’

The LOFAR telescope has the capacity to monitor only relatively nearby stars — within 165 light years of Earth.

Australia and South Africa’s Square Kilometre Array radio telescope is under construction and is set to be switched on in 2029. It would be able to see hundreds of relevant stars out to much greater distances, said the researchers.