Pop songs, talk-back radio to track dangerous space junk

A combination of pop songs, talk-back radio and cutting-edge science has enabled astronomers to identify a way to prevent catastrophic space junk collisions.
The research project spearheaded by Curtin University in Australia, will use the newly operational Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), one of three precursor telescopes for the USD 2 billion Square Kilometre Array project, to detect radio waves reflecting off thousands of objects orbiting the Earth.
The study has already tracked radio waves from FM transmitters located near Perth and Geraldton bouncing off the International Space Station as it passed over Australia, approximately 500 kilometres above the Earth's surface.

Team leader Professor Steven Tingay, Director of the MWA at Curtin University said the MWA will be able to detect the space junk by listening in to the radio signals generated by stations including popular youth network Triple J.
"We have shown that we are able to detect approximately 10 pieces of space junk simultaneously. Over time this means we are in a position to monitor a significant fraction of the space junk that is in Earth orbits," Tingay said.
The importance of this is that space debris is unpredictable and poses a significant collision risk to expensive space infrastructure, such as communication satellites, said Tingay.

"An early warning system has the potential to protect the billions of dollars' worth of vital infrastructure orbiting the earth but also prevent collisions that will result in even more space debris being generated, such as what happened in the case of the Iridium 33 satellite in 2009," he said.

Being one of the first completed studies undertaken using the USD 51 million MWA, the results are important as they confirm the revolutionary astronomy tool is functioning in line with expectations.
"The MWA was designed to be the most powerful low frequency radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere and this was our chance to test its capabilities," Tingay said.

"Prior to undertaking the study we had calculated how strong we expected the signals to be using simulations and theory.
"The measurements we took as part of the study were spot on in agreement with our calculations," Tingay said.