Scientists using a vast array of antennas have made a unique discovery coming from out this world.
What makes the discovery groundbreaking is that for the first time, the signal Earth is receiving is clear.
‘No radio detection has previously been unambiguously localized.’
Using the 64-dish array called MeerKAT, scientists have been able to capture radio signals coming all the way from a distant gas giant planet called Beta Pictoris b, more than 63 light years away.
However, while this marks the first time clear signals have been identified directly from a distant planet rather than its star, it is not a sign of alien life sending signals to Earthly compatriots.
What the dishes are actually picking up are the signals of a strong magnetic field around the planet, which the Daily Mail reports is more than 1,000 times more powerful than Earth’s.
The signals allegedly come from the planet’s aurora, which is similar to that of Earth’s northern and southern lights.
RELATED: How to get iPhone alerts when the latest story hits Blaze News
MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images
“Here, we report the first direct detection of auroral radio emission from an exoplanet, the giant planet β Pictoris b,” researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics wrote, per the Independent.
The researchers explained in their paper that “although auroral radio bursts are observed in Solar System planets and in some ultracool dwarfs, no radio detection has previously been unambiguously localized to an extrasolar planet rather than its host star.”
This discovery comes from the same region scientists have looked at on four separate occasions, where they have previously discovered that the region’s star has four orbiting planets, plainly named Beta Pictoris a, Beta Pictoris b, Beta Pictoris c, and Beta Pictoris d.
Beta Pictoris b’s size is also something to marvel at: It is 12 times the mass of Jupiter. Also, its distance from the star it orbits is about the distance between Saturn and our sun — 886 million miles.
MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images
As for the MeerKAT system, it was built between 2014 and 2018 and is considered to be one of the biggest scientific undertakings in South Africa’s history.
It gets its name from being located at the Meerkat National Park, spans approximately 97,000 square feet, and was previously called the Karoo Array Telescope.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Space exploration, Beta pictoris b, Jupiter, Tech
