Astronomers in Australia picked up a strange radio signal in June 2024 – one near our planet and to the point that, for a moment, it outperformed everything else in the sky. The research, followed by new questions about the growing wreckage problem in the Earth’s orbit.
Initially, the researchers thought they were watching something strange.
“We have raised everything, believing that we have discovered an unknown being in the vicinity of the earth,” said Clans James, associate professor at the Cortin Institute for Radio Science in Western Australia.
The data James and his colleagues were looking at it from Ask Radio Telescope, a group of 36 dish antennas in Wajarri Yamaji Country, each of them about three floors. The team usually searches for the type of signal called the “Radio Break” – a flash of energy that explodes from remote galaxies.
James said: “These are incredibly strong explosions on the radio (waves) that last about about a millisecond,” James said. “We don’t know what they produce, and we are trying to know that, because they really unite well -known physics – it’s very bright. We are also trying to use it to study Distribution In the universe. “
Astronomers believe that these explosions may come from the magnet, according to James. These things are very dense residue of dead stars with strong magnetic fields. James said, “Magnets are completely free,” James said. “It’s the most extreme things you can get in the universe before something turns into a black hole.”
But it seems that the sign is coming from the very close land – it is so close that it cannot be an astronomical being. “We were able to work,” James said.
“We felt disappointed with that, but we thought,” waited again. What produced this anyway? “
A huge short circle
I launched NASA Reading 2Test Moon for Experimental Communications, to the course of 1964. It was an updated version of Deporter 1Which was directed two years ago and used to deport signals between the United States and Europe and broadcast the summer Olympics in 1964 in Tokyo.
After only three years, with the conclusion of its mission and each of its main tools came out of the arrangement, Relay 2 has already turned into the scrap of space. Since then it has been going on without the goal of our planet, until James and his colleagues linked to the strange signal they discovered last year.
But can the dead satellite suddenly return to life after decades of silence?
To try to answer this question, astronomers wrote a paper When analyzed, it is scheduled to be published on Monday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
They realized that the source of the reference was not a distant homosexuality, but something near, when they saw that the image provided by the telescope – a graphic representation of the data – was blurry.
The above shows the foggy image that left astronomers, giving their heads, with reference as a bright spot in the middle. – Marcin Glowacki
James said: “(R) was the reason for obtaining this unclear image (the source) in the field near the antenna – within a few tens of thousands of kilometers.” “When you have a source close to the antenna, it will soon arrive at the external antennas, and generates a curved wave interface, unlike one flat when you are really far away.”
This mismatch in the data between the various antennas caused rupture, and removed it, the researchers removed the sign of the external antennas in favor of the interior of only the telescope, which is spread about 2.3 square miles in the Australian remote areas.
“When we discovered this for the first time, it seemed somewhat weak. But when you enlarge us, it became brighter and brighter. “The signal was about 2000 or 3000 times more brighter than all other radio data it discovers (the tool) – it was so brilliant in the sky, with the factor of thousands.”
Researchers have two ideas about what can cause such a strong spark. James said the main perpetrator was likely to accumulate fixed electricity on the metal skin of the satellite, which was suddenly launched.
“Electrons start on the surface of the spacecraft. The spacecraft begins to ship due to the accumulation of electrons. It continues to ship until there is enough of the charge that revolves around it for a short circuit of the components of the spacecraft, and it will get a sudden spark,” he explained. “It is the same as when you rub your feet on the carpet and then excite your friend with your finger.”
The less likely reason is the effect of micrometer, and the space rock does not exceed 1 mm (0.039 inches): “The micrometer that affects the spacecraft (while traveling 20 km per second or above, will prevent this plasma.” This plasma can emit a short explosion of radio waves. “
However, strict conditions will need to happen in this micrometer interaction, indicating that there is a smaller opportunity to be the cause, according to the research. “We know that (electronic) discharges can be very common,” said James. “As far as human beings are related, they are not dangerous at all. However, they can harm the spacecraft.”
NASA launched communications via satellite 2 in 1964. After three years, the Relay 2 mission ended. – NASA ended
The risk of confusion
Since it is difficult to monitor these drainage, James believes that the radio signal event shows that the radio notes can reveal “strange things that occur to satellites”-and that researchers can use a much cheaper and easier device to search for similar events, rather than the sprawling-end telescope they used. It is also speculated that Relay 2 was an early satellite, the materials you make may be more vulnerable to the accumulation of fixed charge of modern satellites, which were designed with this problem in mind.
But realizing that satellites can interfere with Hungarian observations also represents a challenge and adds to the list of threats they constitute Scrap. Since the dawn of the space age, nearly 22,000 satellites have reached orbit, and more than half is working. Throughout the contracts, the dead satellites contain Hundreds of times collidedCreate a thick field of debris and millions of small fragments that rotate at speeds up to 18,000 miles per hour.
“We are trying mainly to see nanoparticles from the things coming to us from the universe, and if satellites can produce this as well, we will have to be truly careful,” James said. “With more and more satellites, this will make this type of experience more difficult.”
James’s analysis and team of this event is “comprehensive and reasonable”, according to James Cordes, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, who did not participate in the study. “Given that the phenomenon of electronic emptying was known for a long time,” he wrote in an email to CNN, “I think their interpretation may be true. I am not sure that the idea of micrometeroids, which was placed in the paper as an alternative, mutual exclusive. The latter can lead to the previous.”
Ralph Spencer, Fakhri Professor of Radio Astronomy at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, who also did not participate in the work, agrees that the proposed mechanism is possible, noting that sparks from GPS satellites have been discovered before.
The study shows how astronomers should be keen not to confuse radio bursts from astronomical physical sources with electrostatic discharges or micromiteroid bursts, as stated by ropes and Spencer.
“The results show that such tight impulses of space may be more common than previously thought, and that an accurate analysis is needed to show that radiation comes from stars and other astronomical things instead of things that are made by human being close to the earth,” added Spencer in an email.
“New experiences are now under development, such as the low frequency for square frequencies (Ska is lowIt is being built in Australia, which will be able to shed light on this new effect. “
Clarification: This story was updated to clarify the time frame in which the strange radio signal was discovered.
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