GoKawiilCurtin University study finds Starlink hardware leaks signals 10,000x stronger than SKA-Low can tolerate
Researchers at Curtin University analyzed 76 million radio images over 29 days using a prototype SKA-Low station and detected 112,534 unauthorized emissions from 1,806 Starlink satellites within the exact frequency band needed to study cosmic dawn hydrogen signals. The leakage, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, comes not from intentional Starlink transmissions but from unplanned electronic interference radiating through satellite hardware, including periodic 13-kHz tones near 137 MHz.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
SKA-Low needs sensitivity around 10⁻⁵ Jy to detect the faint radio glow from the universe's first stars, but the observed leakage can reach 10⁶ Jy per beam — a gap of roughly eleven orders of magnitude that current filtering techniques cannot close. Because the interference is unpredictable hardware noise rather than a scheduled signal, astronomers cannot simply model and subtract it, threatening the core science case of a multi-billion-dollar international radio telescope just as thousands more Starlink satellites are planned for launch.
- Curtin University found 112,534 unauthorized radio emissions from 1,806 Starlink satellites in SKA-Low's critical frequency range.
- The leakage is accidental hardware interference, not intentional transmissions, making it unpredictable and hard to filter out.
- The interference can be up to 10,000 times stronger than the faint cosmic dawn signals SKA-Low is designed to detect.
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Published there as: “Starlink Signal Leakage Threatens Radio Astronomy's Most Critical Frequencies”
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