We spent years unraveling a signal from space that shouldn’t exist. And at last, we have a “Rosetta Stone” to decode it

Australian astronomers identified ASKAP J1745-5051 as a compact binary system in the Milky Way.

The object is a white dwarf and red dwarf orbiting every 81 minutes, confirmed with ASKAP, Swift, Einstein Probe, and SOAR.

Matter transfer and magnetic shocks appear to drive its periodic radio and X-ray emission.

The finding helps explain long-period radio transients, showing some come from compact white-dwarf/red-dwarf binaries.