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Astronomers have directly detected the first radio emission from an exoplanet, Beta Pictoris b, located 63 light-years away. The signal indicates a magnetic field at least 200 times stronger than Jupiter's, not intelligent life.
Astronomers say they have directly detected the first-ever radio emission from a planet outside the solar system. The signal comes from the exoplanet Beta Pictoris b, located 63 light-years from Earth, a short distance astronomically speaking.
Researchers say it is evidence of a colossal magnetic field, not intelligent life. I know radio signals are associated with searches for extraterrestrial intelligence, said Edo Berger, a professor of astronomy at Harvard University. But this is something very different. The discovery is described in a new paper awaiting publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
Beta Pictoris b Magnetic Field Discovery
The research team pinpointed the radio emission's source as Beta Pictoris b, ruling out an initial suspicion that it could be coming from the star instead. Beta Pictoris b is a gas giant about 12 times the mass of Jupiter. It is one of three planets orbiting a young star that is 1.75 times as massive as the sun.
The star system is astronomically young at about 23 million years old, compared with our solar system's age of 4.5 billion years. The detection involves auroras similar to Earth's northern lights, which are sparked by magnetic storms involving charged particles from the sun. Processes linked to the planet's magnetic field produce the radio emission, according to Berger, a researcher at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In order to see radio waves that extend all the way to the frequencies that we observed, you need an incredibly strong magnetic field, said Berger, a coauthor of the paper. The magnetic field on this planet is at least 200 times stronger than the magnetic field of Jupiter, he said. Jupiter's magnetic field, according to NASA, is powerful enough to generate a magnetosphere that ranks as the largest structure in our solar system.
It stretches up to 2 million miles (3 million kilometers) toward the sun. Jupiter's field also creates striking auroras when charged particles from its moon Io become trapped around the field's poles. As the gas giant rotates, the charged particles emit a glow and a radio signal. As these very high-energy particles are spiraling inside the magnetic field, along with the aurora they also produce radio waves, Berger said.
Auroral Radio Emissions Explained
Astronomers call this an auroral radio emission. The phenomenon has been observed from Jupiter, Saturn and the sun, as well as stars outside the solar system and cool objects known as brown dwarfs, an intermediate between a star and a planet. Not all planets have a magnetic field. Those that do benefit from a natural shield that deflects disruptive energy.
Earth's magnetic field protects our atmosphere from being stripped away by solar wind, a continuous outflow of plasma containing charged particles like protons and electrons. Magnetic fields have implications for the structure of exoplanets and their atmospheres, according to Berger. Radio observations can give us a completely new view on planets beyond our system, he said. There had been hints of radio emissions from exoplanets before, but none had been confirmed.
It largely could not be ruled out that the source was actually the host star, said Joseph Callingham, an associate professor at the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. What is unique for this study is that they localise the emission to the planet itself, separate from the star, Callingham, who was not involved in the new research, wrote in an email.
The Beta Pictoris system is among the most studied in our galaxy. Its star is known to host 30 orbiting comets and a giant disk of dust and debris, which NASA's Hubble Space Telescope photographed in detail in 2015. Some of the debris swirling in the rotating disk is a remnant from planetary formation. Beta Pictoris b was discovered in 2008.
MeerKAT Detects the Signal
Two additional planets, Beta Pictoris c and Beta Pictoris d, were discovered in 2019 and 2026, respectively. The researchers used MeerKAT, an array of 64 radio telescope dishes in South Africa, to detect the signal. They were highly surprised to see it coming from such a well-observed set of celestial bodies, Berger said. My graduate student Kevin was going through the data.
He came into my office one day with the detection and he said, I don't think you're going to believe this, Berger recalled, referring to lead study author Kevin Ortiz Ceballos, a doctoral researcher at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. This was really unexpected for us. We were doing the survey as a bit of a fishing expedition, knowing that we would only detect sources if the magnetic field was incredibly strong, Berger said.
The surprise stems from the fact that astronomers had assumed that if exoplanets have magnetic fields, they should look roughly like Jupiter's, and therefore their radio emissions would be at lower frequencies than what he and his colleagues found. Detecting the signal was the result of going against the perceived wisdom in the field, he said.
Findings Await Peer Review
However, the researchers noted the report has not yet undergone peer review, the process in which independent experts assess a research paper before publication in a scientific journal. The review is underway and will be completed over the next few months. Berger said he is confident about the quality of the detection. We recorded it multiple times, at multiple frequencies.
It's there every single time, he said. Scientists who were not involved with the new research urged caution when interpreting the findings. If the discovery holds up under the scrutiny of peer review, it would represent an incredibly exciting and key step forward in understanding the behavior of worlds beyond our solar system.
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CP24:Radio signal detected for the first time from a planet outside our solar systemThis story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
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