Synchronized star pairs unleash radio bursts via a Jupiter-Io-like mechanism

August 13, 2026 Synchronized star pairs unleash radio bursts via a Jupiter-Io-like mechanism by Whitney Clavin, California Institute of Technology edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan Gaby Clark Scientific Editor Meet our editorial team Behind our editorial process Robert Egan Senior Editor Meet our editorial team Behind our editorial process Editors' notes This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked peer-reviewed publication trusted source proofread The GIST Add as preferred source This artwork shows how white dwarf–M dwarf binary stars create radio emission. Electrons travel along magnetic field lines between the two bodies, creating what's called an electron cyclotron maser instability (ECMI).

Electrons in the current become unstable relative to the ECMI and a "laser" of radio beams, also referred to as a maser, is produced. Most Researchers have helped unravel the mystery of why certain pairs of stars pulse with regular, long-period bursts of radio waves. The particular class of objects observed comes in pairs that always include a compact dead star, called a white dwarf, locked in orbit with an M dwarf, a red star smaller than our sun.

In recent years, astronomers have been puzzled by the fact that a handful of these stellar pairs pulse with radio waves every few minutes over spans of hours. These minute-long gaps between the bursts are much longer than the rapid radio pulses emanating from spinning dead stars, called pulsars, which repeat within mere seconds. Scientists suspected that the long-period radio bursts were somehow tied to the synchronized motion of the white dwarf–M dwarf binary stars, but questions remained about how the process worked.

Now, using supercomputer simulations, Caltech researchers have laid out a clear picture of how interacting white dwarf and M dwarf binaries power beams of intense radio light that shoot into space. "The white dwarf binaries can act like scaled-up planetary radio engines—orbital motion through a strong magnetic field can power bright coherent radio bursts," says Yici Zhong, a Sherman Fairchild Postdoctoral Scholar Research Associate in Theoretical Astrophysics at Caltech from 2024 to July 2026 and the lead author of a paper on the findings published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Zhong works in the group of the study's principal investigator, Elias Most, an assistant professor of theoretical astrophysics and a William H.

Artwork of a white dwarf–M dwarf binary stars. The white dwarf's magnetic field lines, which are stronger than those from the M dwarf, play a key role in creating long-period bursts of radio emission observed from binary stars like these. Most A planetary mechanism scaled up The team's supercomputer simulations specifically detail how a known mechanism called electron cyclotron maser instability (ECMI) causes the radio bursts.

ECMI occurs throughout the universe, around stars and planets, and even in Earth's auroras. It involves electrons spiraling through magnetic fields in such a way that they produce radio emissions. ECMI is most famously behind intense radio bursts observed between Jupiter and its moon Io since 1955.