April 18, 2020, Brandenburg, Sieversdorf: Two Starlink satellites can be seen as streaks of light in the night sky (captured with an exposure time of 15 seconds). Patrick Belloul/Image Coalition via Getty Images A new study says Elon Musk’s constellation of high-bandwidth satellites is leaking radiation. Unintentional emissions can affect the data that radio astronomers can accurately collect. Experts who spoke with Insider say radio astronomy helps us study dark matter and look for alien life.
A new research paper says that SpaceX’s network of low-orbiting satellites is emitting “unintentional electromagnetic radiation” that could negatively affect the study of deep space.
A group of scientists from the Netherlands Institute of Radio Astronomy said they detected radiation on board 47 of the 68 satellites observed over the course of an hour, according to a study published in the journal. Astronomy and Astrophysics, a peer-reviewed journal.
The Starlink satellites – chosen for their abundance in the sky compared to other low-orbiting satellites – were observed using the Low Frequency Array Telescope in the Netherlands. telescope is the biggest in the world It consists of 40 radio antennas spread across Europe with the capacity to monitor radiation wavelengths from the most remote regions of space.
Using a telescope, scientists detected Starlink satellite frequencies from 110 to 188 megahertz – a unit of A measure used for electromagnetic waves. They note that this band “includes a shielded band between 150.05 and 153MHz”.
This protected band, reserved for radio astronomers specifically for space studies, worries scientists that radiation could affect their observations.
SpaceX representatives did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
The internal disturbances of Starlink satellites can be compared to a signal that spoils the music on a radio station, Fahey Beromian, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Southern California, told me.
Beromian described him as having decided to “send a satellite over Los Angeles so that it transmits every five minutes at the level of your favorite station”, which will operate on a specific frequency set by the FCC.
“And as long as you drive with the radio on, every five minutes you get half a minute of silence in there,” Beromian said. Rather than interrupting a song, these Starlink satellites interrupt weak radio waves produced by astronomical objects.
Scientists who spoke with Insider note that, for the most part, interfering frequencies are not uncommon with this problem — although they still exist — because most radio telescopes are built in remote areas. However, Starlink and other low-orbiting satellites, sometimes known as “massive stars,” according to the study, can travel anywhere they choose, including through observing telescopes.
Federico Di Frono, one of the study’s co-authors and co-director of the International Astronomical Union’s Center for Protecting the Dark and Quiet Sky from Interference from Satellite Constellations, told Insider that there are concerns that as more low-orbiting satellites are sent into space, these emissions could be unintentionally amplified, making it difficult to use radio telescopes.
“For space, as far as we understand it, there’s nothing that says this is the maximum level of unintentional emissions a satellite can have,” DeFrono told Insider.
Radio Astronomy Helps Uncover Space’s Biggest Mysteries
Scientists and astronomers who spoke with Insider say that bypassing electrical signals when operating sensitive radio telescopes has always been a challenge.
Take, for example, a Chinese billionaire radio telescope It deals with the challenge of a nearby telescope-themed resort town where astronomy enthusiasts use cell phones, Wi-Fi, and other technologies that can block electromagnetic emissions from light years away. Another example is the now-defunct fleet of Iridium satellites from the 1990s, which produced Fixed at a frequency used by radio astronomers To help scientists Learn how stars form and die.
“Radio telescopes are very sensitive,” Beromian said. “We’re building them in the middle of nowhere because cell phones and even microwave ovens can produce a signal that would interfere with their observations.”
DeFrono told Insider that the overall impact of low-orbiting satellites like Starlink’s on radio astronomy is still unclear. He said the team hopes to include observations of celestial bodies in their next study and, for example, compare their observations with data collected before the Starlink satellites started to cluster in the night sky to see if they have changed.
“We are not saying now that radio astronomy is doomed, that we will no longer be able to do astronomy. We’re saying it’s important to recognize this early enough to have discussions with operators with regulators with astronomy, to say, ‘Okay, this is something we need to discuss and move forward.
However, every expert who spoke to Insider said that significant loss or interference to radio astronomy would be an obstacle for scientists studying the presence of dark matter, star formation or The era of reionization – a period that began 400 million years ago, when the first stars and galaxies formed. There is also a financial loss: millions of dollars are spent planning and building these huge radio telescopes over decades.
Jean-Luc Margot, a radio astronomer at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, who leads Research initiative to identify technological signals Of extraterrestrial intelligence, he told Insider that interference from radio astronomy could pose a problem for him and other researchers looking for life in the universe,
“It would be a truly extraordinary event in the knowledge of the universe to know that we are not alone and that there is a real possibility that radio frequency interference could prevent this discovery from happening,” Margo told Insider.
“Perhaps not the low-level emissions that are studied in this article, but other types of interference, such as the intended emissions from a certain satellite… Imagine that there is an advanced civilization somewhere in the Milky Way, that has a lighthouse to try to communicate with our civilization or any other civilization, he continued, “If interference occurs at this frequency… we may not be able to detect it and it would be tragic if we couldn’t do it, make this discovery. “
DeFrono told Insider that the researchers are collaborating with engineers at SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company that supplies nearly 4,000 Starlink satellites, to discuss ways to mitigate unintended radiation in the future.
However, in the next few years, Musk expects to send thousands of new satellites above Earth, and experts are already concerned that this could create another problem for space monitoring, producing severe light pollution that could affect optical telescopes.
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2023-07-18 07:25:07
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