Just like us, using mobile phones, satellites also communicate with each other and with receiving stations on Earth using radio waves. Ideally, however, elaborate agreements with Network Agencies prevent satellites to interfere with radio astronomy observatories. An exception that has not been researched so far is the interference radiation that emanates from the on-board electronics of certain satellites, for exmple the Starlink satellite constellation of SpaceX.
Scientists from a number of leading research institutions including the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, used the Low Frequency Array (Lofar) telescope to observe 68 of SpaceX’s satellites. ...
