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It's not just optical pollution, the same satellites visible in the article photo over the Pinnacles are leaking radio spectrum noise into the ostensibly "Radio Quiet Zone" of the nearby Murchison that's home to cosmic microwave sensors and one regional part of the developing global SKA radio telescope platform.

▲ genewitch 7 hours ago | parent [-]

This would be real simple to prove, Starlink Satelites downlink on the same band as Satelite TV so you can use the receiver from a dish that downconverts it to something a cheap dongle can handle and put that all inside a grounded, metal box in the bed of a diesel and just record spectrum.

I was under the impression that actual space business people had ways of not leaking RF when flying over.

	▲	defrost 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's been proven by several teams already, eg: `In new research accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters, we discovered Starlink satellites are also “leaking” radio signals that interfere with radio astronomy. Even in a “radio quiet zone” in outback Western Australia, we found the satellite emissions were far brighter than any natural source in the sky.` from: https://theconversation.com/starlink-satellites-are-leaking-... referencing: Detection of intended and unintended emissions from Starlink satellites in the SKA-Low frequency range, at the SKA-Low site, with an SKA-Low station analog (Sep. 2023) https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15672 It's an ongoing issue in that Starlink v1.0 leaked and as I recall promises were made that the next generation of satellites would leak less and turn off when over radio quiet zones .. that second gen group have (IIRC) more noise and continuing transmitting over RQZ's.