[ad_1]
WASHINGTON: An international team of scientists has collected the first possible radio signal from a planet beyond our solar system, emanating from a system of exoplanets some 51 light-years away.
Using Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), a radio telescope in the Netherlands, the researchers discovered bursts of emission from the Tau Bootes star system that is home to the so-called hot Jupiter, a gas giant planet that is very close to its own sun.
The team led by researchers from Cornell University in the US also looked at other possible candidates for exoplanetary radio emissions in the constellation systems Cancer and Upsilon Andromedae.
However, the study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics found that only the Tau Bootes exoplanet system exhibited a significant radio signature, a unique potential window in the planet’s magnetic field.
“We present one of the first indications of the detection of an exoplanet in the radio realm,” said Cornell postdoctoral researcher Jake D. Turner.
“The signal is from the Tau Bootes system, which contains a binary star system and an exoplanet. We defend an emission from the planet itself,” he said.
If confirmed through follow-up observations, the researchers said, this radio detection opens a new window on exoplanets and provides a novel way to examine alien worlds that are tens of light-years away.
Observing an exoplanet’s magnetic field helps astronomers figure out a planet’s interior and atmospheric properties, as well as the physics of star-planet interactions, Turner said.
The Earth’s magnetic field protects it from the dangers of the solar wind, keeping the planet habitable.
“The magnetic field of Earth-like exoplanets can contribute to their possible habitability by protecting their own atmospheres from solar wind and cosmic rays, and by protecting the planet from atmospheric loss,” Turner said.
Two years ago, Turner and his colleagues examined Jupiter’s radio emission signature and scaled those emissions to mimic possible signatures from a distant Jupiter-like exoplanet.
Those results became the template for looking for radio emissions from exoplanets 40 to 100 light years away.
