by New electronics designed to power the antennas of the world’s largest radio telescope are so quiet they will cause less interference than a mobile phone on the moon.
New electronic devices, or SMART boxes, were developed List of Square Kilometers (SKA) A ground-based telescope, a network of radio dishes under construction in Western Australia.
Along with its mid-frequency counterpart, which is being built in South Africa, the SKA Low telescope will be the largest and most sensitive radio telescope when it comes online later this decade.
SKA Low’s 131,072 dipole antennas will be able to detect weak radio signals from the most remote locations. the universe. But this extreme sensitivity means the array, located in a remote, uninhabited area about 500 kilometers (800 miles) north of Perth, will be vulnerable to interference from man-made sources of radio waves.
Related: How does astronomy use the electromagnetic spectrum?
For example, a recent study they discovered that the telescope’s antennas are so sensitive that they can pick up even the soft hums emitted by the electronics on board. SpaceX‘s Starlink bright internet satellites, orbiting 342 miles (550 km) above The world. Man-made sources of radio waves can interfere with observations and confound astronomy. Square Kilometer Array Observatory’s (SKAO) radio manager Federico di Vruno told Space.com pre-interview that this interference could, for example, slow down the telescope’s search for signs of extraterrestrial life.
To minimize interference, a radio-quiet area surrounds the telescope, where the use of mobile phones and radio transmitters is strictly controlled. And, in order to make sure that the electronics of the telescope itself do not contribute to the problem, engineers at the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) at Curtin University in Perth have developed special equipment to transmit energy and signals that emit almost a meter of electromagnetic radiation.
“Radio-quiet in the field of observation that the biggest source of interference is electronics like ours, due to the proximity of the antennas,” Tom Booler, head of the engineering program and operations at ICAR, said in an email. “That meant our project had to meet the most stringent radio emissions requirements in the entire SKA area of Australia.”
In addition to being made of radio-silent materials, these devices are covered in a special coating that prevents any radiation from escaping into the environment. When tested, the devices emitted less radiation than the antennas from a mobile phone placed on the ground. monthadd a Booler.
Construction of a large radio telescope began in December 2022 after more than 30 years of preparation. The two telescope sites in Australia and South Africa will have a combined collecting area of 1 square kilometer, as the name suggests, or 0.34 square miles. The area in Western Australia will listen to radio waves with the lowest frequencies, between 50 to 350 MHz. The South African array, which will have 197 50-foot-wide (15 meters) dish antennas, will focus on long-wavelength, between 350 MHz and 15.4 GHz.
Radio waves have a longer wavelength than visible light, which makes them able to penetrate dust and debris. Sensitive radio telescopes such as SKAO allow astronomers to detect radio waves traveling through natural regions that are hidden and invisible to other types of telescopes.
“The SKA telescopes will truly revolutionize the way we understand the universe,” said Catherine Cesarsky, chair of the SKAO council, in a statement last year. “They will allow us to study its nature and some of its mysterious phenomena in unprecedented detail, and that is very exciting for the scientific community.”
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