#astrocenter

Telescope to track space junk using youth radio station

Built to allow astronomers to look back in cosmic time, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), based in outback Western Australia, will also look into the future and help avert catastrophic collisions between satellites and space junk orbiting the Earth.

A research team using the MWA has predicted that FM radio waves transmitted from commercial radio stations can be reflected off space junk and detected by the MWA, allowing the junk to be monitored and tracked.

Publication: Tingay et al. in The Astronomical Journal 146, 103 "On the detection and tracking of space debris using the Murchison Widefield Array. I. Simulations and test observations demonstrate feasibility"

MWA telescope detects FM radio bouncing off space junk

Commercial FM broadcast signals are transmitted into Space and bounce off satellites and pieces of space junk. The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) radio telescope can detect the reflected signals and image the orbits of these objects.