(Image via science.org)

Staff Writer: Akshit Bagga

Email: abagga@umassd.edu

A new study suggests that while SpaceX’s Starlink satellites are enabling faster and more efficient cell phone communications and internet access around the globe, they are posing a threat to radio astronomy.

Researchers working on the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) in the Netherlands have found that SpaceX’s growing network of internet-facilitating satellites is blinding and interfering with their instruments. During July observations, the team of scientists found that the series of “Starlink satellites appear up to 10 million times brighter when compared to some of the most precious objects of radio astronomy research.”

Radio astronomy uses super-sensitive antennas to detect fading radio signals emitted by stars, satellites, black holes, and other celestial objects in the universe. Radio pollution from satellites revolving in space interferes with these signals and measurements, sometimes obscuring them altogether. 

The radio pollution from these Starlink satellites comes from the unintended electromagnetic radiation that these satellites leak in the Earth’s lower orbit. This sort of radiation consists of waves emitted by the satellites’ electronics as they try to transmit meaningful signals to the receivers (the scientists) on our planet.

It was during July 2023 that the researchers first discovered that SpaceX’s generation 1 Starlink satellites, which launched in the year 2019, were leaking unintended electromagnetic radiation (UEMR) into space. This radiation was inadvertently given off by satellites in multiple directions and is like the faint signals from distant cosmic bodies.

While SpaceX worked on these issues and launched a newer generation of satellites in February 2023, the latest generation of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites are leaking even more potentially disruptive radiations than their predecessors. It is believed that these newer generations are leaking up to 32 times more radio waves. 

While many raise concerns, some astronomers believe that if SpaceX continues to deploy these newer versions of satellites, we could reach an inflection point in signals where studying emitted signals from the cosmos could no longer be a possibility.

According to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, the worst offenders for space are the V2 Mini satellites.

Jessica Dempsey, the Director of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy who manages the LOFAR research telescopes in Europe, said, “The satellite radio pollution interferes with measurements of distant exoplanets and nascent black holes. It might also obscure the faint radiation coming from the Epoch of Reionization, one of the least-understood periods in the history of the universe.”

Dempsey added, “Detecting this primordial radiation is one of the big challenges in radio astronomy. Unfortunately, these might be the cases which are lost because of the influx of these satellites, if they remain at this level.”

While the LOFAR radio antennas are surrounded by a radio quiet zone that restricts the use of any device near them that may emit low-frequency radio waves between 10 and 240 MHz, the noises from space do not have any set regulations.

The Starlink constellation currently consists of more than 6,300 active satellites, and SpaceX plans to launch 40,000 Starlink spacecraft, with at least 40 satellites going into space every week.  

Robert Massey, the Deputy Executive Director of the Royal Astronomical Society in the UK, said, “It’s very clear that if you have something this bright that is compromising a major radio observatory this much, then we need to do something, and we need to do it quickly.”

He added, “It’s wrong to say that there is some science that you can simply dismiss. The applications may be decades or even longer in the future, but they can be very fundamental and very important.”

While astronomers say they spoke to SpaceX about the radiation from their first-generation satellites, and the company addressed their concerns, they feel that addressing the concerns over the second generation of satellites is much more important due to rising radiation levels.