NORTHERN CAPE. – South Africa's MeerKAT telescope has detected radio signals from a planet roughly 63 light-years from Earth, giving scientists new clues about the planet's magnetic field.
MeerKAT consists of 64 linked radio antennas and is located roughly 90 km outside Carnarvon in the Northern Cape.
The signal comes from Beta Pictoris b, a young gas giant that orbits the star Beta Pictoris.
The observations were made by an international team of astronomers. Researchers were able to trace the radio waves directly back to the planet and not just to the star it orbits.
This is important because it helps scientists learn more about the properties of exoplanets, or planets outside our own solar system.
The researchers observed rapid, repeating radio bursts that are strongly polarised. According to them, the radiation is linked to the planet's magnetic field and a natural process similar to the one that causes auroras on planets in our own solar system.
According to the researchers, the observations indicate a magnetic field of at least roughly 1.25 kilogauss in the region where the radio radiation originates.
It is not, however, a signal from another civilisation. The researchers link the radio waves to natural magnetic and atmospheric processes.
Beta Pictoris b is a large gas giant with roughly ten times the mass of Jupiter. The planet was discovered in 2008 and is part of a young planetary system located roughly 63 light-years from Earth.
The discovery could help scientists better understand how magnetic fields work on large planets and how it can protect a planet's atmosphere against radiation and particles from its parent star.
The research was posted on 15 September on arXiv and must still be evaluated by other scientists before it is published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Sources: CNN, NASA, South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), arXiv
This article is an automatic English translation of a Nuusflits article originally published in Afrikaans. Read the Afrikaans original.
