Astronomers have detected rare radio waves from a binary star system, challenging previous ideas about their origins. These pulses, lasting from milliseconds to minutes, arrive every 125.5 minutes. Scientists now believe they come from a white dwarf and red dwarf orbiting each other.

Astronomers say they have traced a mysterious pulsing in the Milky Way to a surprising source: a dead star locked in a dance with another star.

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.