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Will Starlink Doom Radio Astronomy?
Megaconstellations threaten to block our view of the heavens.
Back in the 1930s, an engineer working on trans-Atlantic radio systems noticed an odd daily pattern appearing in his radio signals. Investigation showed this repeating signal came not from Earth, or even from our Solar System, but from the heart of the Milky Way.
The engineer, Karl Jansky, was soon reassigned to more profitable activities. Still, his chance discovery inspired astronomers to take a closer look at radio signals coming from the heavens. Over the following decades the field blossomed, revealing many surprises — from pulsars to quasars. Today it is one of the main areas of astronomical research.
Jansky’s signal, it turned out, was caused by the powerful black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Such extreme objects are intense emitters of radio waves. Indeed, it is through radio observations that we get some of our best views of black holes — including the famous first image taken in 2019.
Little wonder, then, that astronomers are keen to build more powerful radio telescopes. The Square Kilometre Array — a proposed telescope fifty times more sensitive than any other built — is one such idea. Stretching across Australia and South Africa, the observatory would combine thousands of antennas into a…
