Starlink's Leaked Signals Are 10,000 Times Brighter Than the Cosmic Dawn Astronomers Are Hunting
Starlink Signal Leakage Threatens Radio Astronomy's Most Critical Frequencies
A Curtin University team analyzed 76 million radio images from the SKA-Low prototype in Australia and catalogued 112,534 unintended emissions from 1,806 Starlink satellites across 73–235 MHz, the exact band needed to detect neutral hydrogen from the cosmic dawn. Some leakage reaches 10⁶ Jy/beam, roughly 10,000 times stronger than the target signals, and lands inside ITU-protected bands. Because the ITU only regulates intentional transmissions, this hardware leakage sits in a legal gray zone, leaving astronomers without protection.
Comparable to the brightest natural radio sources in the sky.
- moeffju
I realize this is off topic, but why do people use Claude of all models to write these, when its style is so obvious and so grating? I just immediately hit Back on the first Claudism.
- ccamrobertson
While I pine for a dark sky, it makes sense that these operations should move in the same way century old optical telescopes in cities are no longer used for cutting edge science.
The far side of the moon seems like an increasingly viable option.
- robryan
> Algorithmic mitigation is being explored, but scientists describe it as “embryonic” — potentially demanding computing power that rivals the science processing itself.
It sounds like this would work? Just be more costly, at least in the short term.
> Engineering fixes are the real answer
What is the fix and tradeoff? The article doesn't seem to cover it at all.
- RockRobotRock
maybe Internet for people on earth matters more than astronomy
- gigatexal
Another example of billionaire wait trillionaire power capture. It’s really tough for democracy when one man has all that power. Hah Elon is lex luthor.