Scientists from various parts of the world are studying this May in Maspalomas at the IV URSI Atlantic Radio Scientific Meeting the advances they have discovered in stars that, unexpectedly, emit powerful radio waves, which points to the existence of hidden planets. In 2021, Nature magazine reported radio signals from 19 red dwarf stars with the low-frequency radio telescope of the Dutch National Observatory Astron.
Radio astronomy experts study with Deep Space Network antennas as an indispensable link for explorers who venture beyond Earth. They provide the crucial connection to command spacecraft and receive images and scientific information never before seen on Earth, driving understanding of the universe, the solar system and, ultimately, our place within it.
Among the participants are Cristina Gacia-Miró, president of the Radio Astronomy Commission of URSI-Spain and graduate in Astronomy from the Complutense University of Madrid and the University of Granada. Her first job was as a spacecraft controller and operator of the International Ultraviolet Exploration Space Telescope (IUE, ESA/NASA). For 17 years she was a support radio astronomer at NASA's Deep Space Communications Center in Madrid, specializing in VLBI and single dish observations with large scientific facilities and supporting different NASA projects.
Among the attendees were confirmed professors Krzysztof K. Cwalina (Gdansk University of Technology, Poland), Giuliano Manara, Madhu Chandra, Claudio Cesaroni, Yasuhide Hobara, Tullio Tanzi, Ivan Galkin, Michael Pezzopane, Tobias GW Verhulst, Claudio Cesaroni, Valentina Palazzi and Paolini Giacomo, the latter two from the University of Bologna, Italy. And Flavio Jorge (International Union of Radio Science, Lisbon, Portugal)
One of the stars is undoubtedly the University of Tokyo professor Hidetoshi Katori, who proposed the idea of "Internet of clocks" for various measurements related to geosciences, such as earthquakes, which opened a new field of application for this type of watches. He led several prestigious projects such as CREST (Japan Science and Technology), the innovative space-time project ERATO Katori, the JST Mirai program, etc. Professor Katori has received many prestigious awards. To name a few from this long list, there are the Julius Springer Prize (2005), the RABI Prize (2008), the Philipp Franz von Siebold Prize (2011), the Micius Quantum Prize (2020), the Breakthrough in Fundamental Physics Prize ( 2021), the 20th IBM Science Prize of Japan (2006), Asahi Prize (2011), Medal with Purple Ribbon (2014), 54th Fujihara Prize (2013), 14th Leo Esaki Prize (2017), Prize Honda (2022).
It has long been known that planets in our own solar system emit powerful radio waves when their magnetic fields interact with solar winds carrying radio signals from planets outside our solar system. This discovery, he adds, has been an important step for radio astronomy that could lead to the discovery of planets throughout the galaxy.
Until recently, only the closest stars had been identified through signals from constant radio emissions, while any other signals were attributed to interstellar gas or exotic matter, such as black holes. Now, radio astronomers can see simple old stars when they carry out their observations and, with that information, we can search for the planets surrounding those stars.
Thus, they focus their attention on red dwarf stars, which are much smaller than the Sun and have high magnetic activity, which promotes radio emissions and stellar flares. Contrary to expectations, they have also detected the existence of some old and magnetically inactive stars.
The Deep Space Network, or DSN, is NASA's international array of giant radio antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions, as well as some orbiting Earth. The DSN also provides radar and radio astronomy observations that improve our understanding of the solar system and the universe as a whole. The DSN consists of three facilities spaced equidistantly from each other (approximately 120 degrees longitude) around the world. These sites are in Goldstone, near Barstow, California; near Madrid, Spain; and near Canberra, Australia. The strategic location of these sites allows for constant communication with spacecraft as our planet rotates: before a distant spacecraft sinks below the horizon at one DSN site, another site can pick up the signal and continue communicating.
