Alien Radio Waves

No, not alien radio signals. Signals suggest someone or something is doing the signalling. A new study suggests that radio waves, however, can help us detect exoplanets.

Gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn are natural radio emitters, the result of the interaction between charged particles in the upper atmosphere and the planet's magnetic field. For that reason, radio noise is often associated with aurorae on such worlds. The new study argues that a radio telescope targeted on low frequency radio waves could detect such radio noise around other stars, thus helping to find new planets.

Happily, a radio telescope capable of detecting low frequency waves is coming online in the Netherlands later this year.