Surprise discovery of radio signals could help track space junk and limit global security risks
By Jake Sturmer, Christian Cominos, and Bethanie Alderson
Posted Mon 17 Oct 2022 at 4:12pm Monday 17 Oct 2022 at 4:12pm, updated Mon 17 Oct 2022 at 9:21pm
Scientists are testing a new system to track the thousands of satellites and space junk orbiting Earth using the same radio transmissions that make a car's radio sing.
The surprising discovery came from a radio telescope intended to look back 13 billion years to the first formation of stars and galaxies in our universe.
"Back in 2013 we turned on this new radio telescope called the Murchison Widefield Array … [and] pretty quickly we found signals that clearly weren't astronomical," Curtin University astrophysicist Steven Tingay said. "And after a little bit of work, we tracked down the fact that they were due to objects in space, reflecting FM transmissions from radio stations on Earth."
Junk affects key satellites and defence
As more and more satellites are launched into Earth's orbit, keeping track of everything in space and the tens of thousands of bits of space junk is a major challenge.
It is known as Space Domain Awareness.
More:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-18/space-junk-tracked-by-waves-that-make-our-car-radio-sing/101526886