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High-Intensity Signal From The Old NASA Relay 2 Satellite Captured By Australian Telescopes
An NASA satellite, inactive since the 1960s, surprised astronomers by emitting an intense radio pulse in June 2024, captured by radio telescopes in Australia. The phenomenon was so powerful that it briefly outshone all other objects in the sky, intriguing specialists who are investigating its causes.
Launched in 1964, the Relay 2 was a prototype communication satellite, deactivated just three years later. Since then, it had drifted as space junk in low Earth orbit, without any sign of activity. The unexpected detection occurred while scientists were searching for signals of fast radio bursts using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), a array with 36 antennas in the west of the country.
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Initially, researchers thought it might be a cosmic source such as a new pulsar, due to the intensity of the emission. However, the analysis revealed that the origin was incredibly close to Earth, less than 20 thousand kilometers away, which excluded any extragalactic phenomenon.
Signal Stronger Than Any Star In The Sky For Fractions Of A Second
The pulse lasted less than 30 nanoseconds, an extremely brief interval for events of this nature, which complicated immediate identification. Still, the ASKAP managed to determine its exact location. After cross-referencing data with known orbital positions, astronomers concluded that the most likely source was the Relay 2, a satellite deactivated nearly 60 years ago.
The main hypothesis raised by scientists is that the pulse was generated by an electrostatic discharge, that is, a sudden release of energy accumulated on the satellite’s surface. Another possibility considered is the impact of a micrometeoroid, capable of creating a cloud of charged plasma upon colliding with the spacecraft’s metallic shell.
According to researchers, both explanations are plausible but difficult to differentiate based only on the captured data. This is because the radio signatures of a discharge and an impact can be extremely similar, especially over such short durations.
Events Like This May Be More Common Than Expected
The episode raises concerns about the effects of electrostatic charges on satellites and objects in orbit, especially given the growing number of small satellites with limited protection. Specialist Karen Aplin from the University of Bristol pointed out that similar discharges may occur more frequently than imagined, but until now they went unnoticed due to a lack of appropriate instruments to detect them.
Furthermore, scientists observed that the event was notably shorter than previously recorded discharges in satellites, which typically last several microseconds. This reinforces the idea that short-duration phenomena also deserve active monitoring, given their intensity and potential for interference.
The phenomenon also raises a warning about the behavior of so-called “space debris,” as thousands of deactivated satellites orbit Earth uncontrolled, accumulating electrical charge for decades. Episodes like this could interfere with communications, navigation, or equipment in low orbit.
The discovery was recorded in a peer-reviewed article, published in the scientific repository arXiv. According to the authors, it would be wise to develop sensors and technologies that can detect these discharges with greater accuracy in the future, especially in missions involving sensitive equipment.
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