Here’s what you will learn when you read this story:
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A quick radio burst (FRB) has been discovered, coming from the near-terrestrial orbit, which is unusually close, given that tens of thousands of light years have been discovered.
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It turned out that the signal came from a satellite, which was brought out of operation in the late 1960s, after his instruments fell apart.
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What triggers the electrostatic discharge that caused the signal is still uncertain, but the investigation can help us understand how to prevent damage to a living spacecraft.
The space is full of mysterious signals. While most come from natural cosmic phenomena, a recent quick radio burst (FRB) had all the markings of modern technologies that disturbed scientists until they followed it to a surprising source: our own space junk.
The accumulation of human junk has exceeded the landfills on Earth. The orbiting of our planet is all space trash space garbage, from the larger pieces of 23,000 pieces of waste, such as satellites, up to more than 100 million homeless fragments of metal and glass and anything else that flies around.
The satellites that retire are deorbone in the orbit of the cemetery within 25 years after the end of their missions. This is the case with NASA Relay 2 Satellite satellite, which flew in 1964 until its transponders break through. He hung dead in the almost earthly orbit until 1967. And since then nothing has shone until now.
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Relay 2 is not suddenly not activated. Instead, something triggered him to send FBR so quickly that he was not in the nanosecond, on the surface, which was then harvested by the Australian square mileage of Pathfinder (Askap). Astronomer Clancy James and his research team have discovered the source, which comes only 4500 km (about 2796 miles) from Earth. This meant that he may have issued a neutron star, magnet or zombie galaxy. When the researchers followed him to re -re -re -re -relevant, they realized that something must have interacted with the Apollo Age’s relic.
“Loading a spacecraft into orbit due to interactions with the cosmic environment is well known phenomena from the first days of the space program,” the scientists said in a recent study of publication in The letters of astrophysical magazines and published on ARXIV. “The accumulation of electrons and ions can lead to large differences in tension between spacecraft surfaces and spacecraft and space plasma.”
The most common culprits? Electrostatic discharge (ESD) or plasma discharge caused by a collision with a fraudster micrometeoroid. A spacecraft that is still alive and performing its missions must be designed to avoid dangerous ESD currents. This does not yet make spacecraft fully immunized. Most do not have on -board monitors to detect charge accumulation levels and this accumulation is usually not detected until damage is caused. Therefore, scientists have suggested ground radio monitors to monitor ESDs, but no system is still capable of monitoring a large number of spacecraft.
On June 13, 2024, Askap caught FRB from Relay 2 using its Askap Rongients Askap (Craft) Survey Survey (Craft) system. Frbs are so powerful that they only take milliseconds to emit the radio energy of 500 million suns. They can travel everywhere from millions to billions of light years through the void of space, with the closest coming from a magnet in our galaxy, which is 30,000 light-years. Therefore, finding FRB so close to the ground dumped James until it discovered that it came from relay 2.
Although this FRB could be removed from a micrometeoroid, which can also produce radio emissions, James believes that the signal is more likely to be the result of an electrostatic discharge. Electrons and ions accumulated by satellites can eventually reach a sufficiently high voltage to release the discharge. ESD is known to cause radio frequency impulses. Such a powerful burst as FRB was unexpected and the researchers have not yet found exactly what the trigger is. Future investigations can help them come up with ways to protect a spacecraft live.
“When sufficient voltage is achieved, an electrostatic discharge (ESD) occurs, usually between surfaces/materials on nearby surfaces of the spacecraft. ESD does not depend on the operating nature of the spacecraft,” scientists said. “So ESD from satellite, out of operation 60 years ago, is completely plausible.”
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