In the past three years, astronomers have discovered a mysterious new type of radio source. We call these long-period transients.

Astronomers have traced a starnge blast of radiowaves that repeats every 2 hours back to a dead star white dwarf magnetically slamming its stellar companion.

Astronomers have figured out where a stream of long radio bursts is coming from, and its origin is unprecedented. Rather than coming from the typical neutron star—the core of a star that has exploded and can no longer undergo nuclear fusion—the pulses are emitted by a pair of stars locked in a cosmic dance with one another.