Astronomers have finally worked out what is sending mysterious radio signals across space

Mysterious sounds pinging around space could be the perfect set up for a sci-fi movie as a set of astronauts seek out the source and make some mad discovery.

But it’s also a relatively real situation as we continue to learn more and more about what’s out there. And while it’s not quite as dramatic (or perhaps as exciting) as a film plot, astronomers finally worked out what was sending a mysterious radio signal across space.

The repeating signal was first detected a whole decade ago, with the team baffled over just what on earth (well, what not on Earth, I guess) was causing it.

The scientists published their research in the journal Nature Astronomy last month (12 March) having used a range of technology and devices to come to a conclusion.

The signals have been transmitting radio emissions to Earth for about two hours each day and it was thought they were coming from the Big Dipper constellation – you know, the pattern of stars in the northern sky, not the Blackpool rollercoaster.

Scientists had said it was coming from by the Big Dipper. (Getty Stock)

In the past, astronomers had only linked long-period radio bursts like this mysterious one to neutron stars.

However, their study has put a whole new spin on this as scientists now believe the repeated radio signals may be coming from a pair of dead stars.

The team tracked them back to a strange binary system containing the white dwarf and a red dwarf stellar companion, orbiting so closely their magnetic fields are constantly interacting.

So basically, as the stars bump into each other every two hours, they give off these radio signals – typically fleeting and tending to last between seconds to a few minutes.

“There are several highly magnetised neutron stars, or magnetars, that are known to exhibit radio pulses with a period of a few seconds,” Northwestern University astrophysicist and study co-author Charles Kilpatrick said in a statement to EurekAlert!.

The team finally worked it out. (NASA/Getty Stock)

“Some astrophysicists also have argued that sources might emit pulses at regular time intervals because they are spinning, so we only see the radio emission when source is rotated toward us. Now, we know at least some long-period radio transients come from binaries. We hope this motivates radio astronomers to localize new classes of sources that might arise from neutron star or magnetar binaries.”

Leader of the study, Iris de Ruiter added: “It was especially cool to add new pieces to the puzzle.

“We worked with experts from all kinds of astronomical disciplines. With different techniques and observations, we got a little closer to the solution step by step.”