Jim Preston / Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
He was active 3 years, and is now the scene of an outbreak of emission that confuses scientists. Discovery opens doors to remote detection of electrostatic discharges.
“We report the detection of an outbreak between 695.5 megahertz and 1031.5 megahertz bandwidth by Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder, Askap,” writes a team led by astronomer Clancy James. “The outbreak was located through the analysis of temporal delays in the next field, In the old Relay 2 satellite, there is long deactivated. ”
The mysterious radio sign was detected in a NASA satellite that orbits the earth for over 50 yearsbut which has been drifting, inactive, “dead.” In fact, it only remained operational for a short time – no more than 3 years. Oscillates between altitudes of 1,867 and 7,648 kilometers, explains the
“Using the location of Askap, the moment of the outbreak and the Skyfield module in Python, we have been coincidental in time and position in the sky between the outbreak and the terrestrial satellites,” write the authors of published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
“A viable correspondence was found for Norad ID 737 (Relay 2)… We conclude, therefore, that This outbreak originated in Relay 2“.
This outbreak could not have been the result of a reflection of sunlight. Ad hypotheses were reduced to two possibilities: an electrostatic discharge or a plasma discharge after the impact of a small space rock – a micrometeoroide.
What was the trigger for the outbreak? Scientists try to answer this question.
“The observation of such a brief outbreak to GHz frequencies is unexpected and raises the possibility of New remote detection methods of satellite arc dischargeseither by adapting existing experiences that seek rapid outbreaks of radio or high -energy particles, and dedicated new instruments, ”the researchers write.
“Our observation opens new possibilities for the remote detection of electrostatic discharges, which represent a serious threat to spacecraft, and reveals a new source of false events for observations of transient astrophysical phenomena. ”
