Astronomers using South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope detected short, repeating radio bursts originating directly from the exoplanet Beta Pictoris b.
Deep in space, roughly 63 to 64 light-years from Earth, lies a very young planetary system (as reported by WIRED) that is less than 1 percent as old as our solar system. The system’s central star, Beta Pictoris, hosts a massive debris disk along with multiple giant planets. Among them is Beta Pictoris b, a gas giant roughly 10 to 12 times more massive than Jupiter. Because the system is only a few tens of millions of years old, the newborn planet remains hot, bright, and easily distinguished from its host star using powerful instruments.
While astronomers have confirmed over 6,300 exoplanets circling distant host stars, isolating signals from an individual planet amidst the blinding glare of its parent star has remained a daunting hurdle. A team of astrophysicists from Harvard and the University of Oregon overcame this barrier by pointing the massive MeerKAT radio telescope array in South Africa at the system across four separate observing sessions conducted in 2025 and 2026.
MeerKAT Observations Reveal Exoplanet Aurora and Strong Magnetic Fields
During their observations across the L-band (0.8 to 1.7 gigahertz) and S-band (1.7 to 3.5 gigahertz), researchers recorded rapid, recurring, and highly circularly polarized radio bursts alongside persistent emission. To confirm the signals originated from the planet rather than background cosmic noise or the star itself, the team used extremely bright, magnetized galaxy cores known as quasars as cosmic lighthouses to triangulate precise coordinates.
The data revealed that the signals traveled in a characteristic circular orientation typical of auroras. On Earth, northern and southern lights are born when electrically charged molecules collide with a planet’s magnetic field. At Beta Pictoris b, researchers noted that the same fundamental process—known as Electron Cyclotron Maser Instability—is at play, driven by charged particles accelerating along intense magnetic field lines.
“Here, we report the first direct detection of auroral radio emission from an exoplanet, the giant planet β Pictoris b,”
Scientists, in a yet-to-be peer-reviewed study detailed via Yahoo
The researchers further explained in their pre-print study, as noted by Yahoo reporting, that although auroral radio bursts are observed in Solar System planets and in some ultracool dwarfs, no radio detection has previously been unambiguously localised to an extrasolar planet rather than its host star
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Measuring Beta Pictoris b and Its 1,250-Gauss Magnetic Strength
By analyzing the frequency limits where the radio waves peaked near the top of MeerKAT’s observing band, the science team calculated that the planet possesses a magnetic field strength exceeding 1,250 Gauss—over 300 times more powerful than Jupiter’s field and thousands of times stronger than Earth’s surface magnetism. This breakthrough provides the first direct measurement of magnetic field strength for any exoplanet.
These intense fields are sustained in part by the planet’s rapid rotation. Professor Edo Berger of the Harvard Astronomy department co-authored the paper posted on September 15, 2026, alongside colleagues including K.N. Ortiz Ceballos and Y. Cendes.
This result, if it holds up in peer review, is an incredibly exciting advancement…
Joe Callingham, astronomer at the University of Amsterdam, via Science News and Yahoo
What This Means for the Search for Habitable Worlds
Despite the excitement surrounding the discovery, researchers were quick to clarify that the signals have zero connection to extraterrestrial intelligence. Instead of looking for artificial radio chatter akin to traditional SETI efforts—which have yielded null results over decades since Frank Drake’s pioneering 1960 search—astronomers are now equipped with a brand-new physical tool to probe planetary interiors.
A strong magnetic field acts as an essential planetary shield, trapping solar wind and preventing harmful radiation from stripping away a young world's atmosphere.
