Radio Astronomy
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Dark and Quiet Skies for Science and Society Report for review Online workshop 5-9 October 2020 Protection of radio astronomy Working Group Members Harvey Liszt, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, IUCAF Chair (USA) Federico DiVruno, SKA Telescope (UK) Michael Lindqvist, Chalmers, Onsala Space Observatory (Sweden) Masatoshi Ohishi, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan Adrian Tiplady, South African Radio Astronomy Observatory Tasso Tzioumis, CSIRO (Australia) Bevin Ashley Zauderer, National Science Foundation (USA) Liese van Zee, Indiana University (USA) RADIO ASTRONOMY AS A DISCIPLINE ......................................................................................................... 3 5.1.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................ 3 5.1.2. A History of discovery ............................................................................................................................ 4 5.1.3 RADIO ASTRONOMY AS AN ENGINE OF TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION ...................................................................... 4 5.1.4 HOW RADIO ASTRONOMY IS DONE ...................................................................................................................... 5 5.1.4.1 Radio contrasted with optical astronomy ..................................................................................... 5 5.1.4.2 The sensitivity of radio telescopes ................................................................................................ 5 5.1.4.3 Spectral bandwidth and frequency resolution ............................................................................... 6 5.1.4.4 Angular resolution ......................................................................................................................... 7 5.1.4.5 Sidelobes and immunity to interference ....................................................................................... 7 5.1.4.6 Where are radio astronomy telescopes located? What do they look like? ................................. 8 5.1.4.7 Investment in instruments and operations .................................................................................... 9 REGULATION OF USE OF RADIO SPECTRUM............................................................................................... 10 5.2.1 SPECTRUM IS A SHARED RESOURCE FOR EVERYONE ............................................................................................... 10 5.2.2 SPECTRUM MANAGEMENT: INSTITUTIONS, MECHANISMS, SERVICES, ALLOCATIONS ..................................................... 10 5.2.3 NOTIONS OF SPECTRUM COMPATIBILITY AND PROTECTION ..................................................................................... 11 5.2.4 THE RADIO REGULATIONS, MODIFIED AT THE WRC .............................................................................................. 12 5.2.6 HOW RADIO ASTRONOMERS RESPOND ............................................................................................................... 13 SPECTRUM PROTECTION FOR RADIO ASTRONOMY ................................................................................... 13 5.3.1 FREQUENCY BANDS ALLOCATED TO RADIO ASTRONOMY ....................................................................................... 13 5.3.2 IMPORTANCE OF SPECTRUM DEDICATED TO PASSIVE USE ........................................................................................ 15 5.3.3 USE OF SPECTRUM THAT IS NOT ALLOCATED TO RADIO ASTRONOMY ......................................................................... 17 5.3.4 RADIO QUIET ZONES: USES AND LIMITATIONS...................................................................................................... 18 5.3.5 CHALLENGES TO RADIO QUIET ZONES ................................................................................................................. 19 5.3.6 SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................................... 20 RISKS TO RADIO ASTRONOMY .................................................................................................................. 20 5.4.1 UNWANTED EMISSIONS IN THE PROTECTED RAS BANDS ........................................................................................ 21 5.4.2 INCREASING OCCUPATION OF SPECTRUM OUTSIDE THE RAS BANDS ......................................................................... 21 5.4.3 IMPACT OF SATELLITE CONSTELLATIONS, INCLUDING GSO ...................................................................................... 21 5.4.4 IMPACT OF NGSO SATELLITE CONSTELLATIONS .................................................................................................... 22 5.4.5 EARTH-TO-SPACE TRANSMISSIONS ASSOCIATED WITH NGSO SYSTEMS ..................................................................... 24 5.4.6 SPACE-TO-EARTH TRANSMISSIONS ASSOCIATED WITH NGSO SYSTEMS .................................................................... 24 5.4.7 USE OF SPECTRUM IN THE PRESENCE OF STRONG RADIOCOMMUNICATION SIGNALS OVERHEAD ..................................... 26 5.4.8 PROLIFERATION OF SPACEBORNE AND MOBILE RADARS THAT CAN DESTROY A RADIO ASTRONOMY RECEIVER .................... 26 5.4.9 SPECTRUM NEWLY-ALLOCATED TO APPLICATIONS APPEARING OVERHEAD .................................................................. 27 5.4.10 SHARING DEDICATED PASSIVE SPECTRUM WITH ACTIVE SERVICES ........................................................................... 27 THE WAY FORWARD AND TWO RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING NON-GSO SATELLITES .......................... 29 5.5.1 WHAT RADIO ASTRONOMY CAN AND WILL DO, BY AND FOR ITSELF ........................................................................... 29 5.5.2 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PROTECTION OF RADIO ASTRONOMY FROM NON-GSO SATELLITES ........................................ 30 2 SECTION 5.1 Radio astronomy as a discipline 5.1.1 Introduction Radio astronomy has revolutionized our understanding of the Universe in the last century. Quasars, pulsars, the Big Bang and many other phenomena were first revealed by radio astronomy. Radio waves are emitted by most astronomical objects and observations in the radio region of the electromagnetic spectrum - frequencies up to 3000 GHz or wavelengths longer than 100 microns - are important for research in essentially all disciplines of astrophysics. Radio waves can be generated thermally, from the heat contained by a body, or non-thermally during the interaction of charged particles and magnetic fields. Emitted radiation may be broadly distributed in frequency (continuum radiation), as when electrons spiral at near lightspeed in magnetic fields and when ions recombine in a hot plasma. It is of utmost importance to observe continuum radiation over a wide frequency range because the origin of the radiation is only evident from the overall shape of its spectral distribution. Radiation may also appear at discrete frequencies corresponding to the internal structure of an atom or molecule and these lines are Doppler-shifted in frequency due to any relative motion with respect to the observer. Observing a sufficient number of such spectral lines reveals both the chemical identity of the particles (as with laboratory gas chromatography) and the speed of their motion. Spectral line radiation from the earliest known galaxies appears shifted to frequencies that are ten times smaller than measured in the laboratory. Hydrogen is the most abundant element and study of the so-called 21 cm or HI (“H-One”) line from neutral atomic hydrogen at a rest frequency of 1420.4 MHz is of fundamental importance. A very basic question is how hydrogen was distributed in the early Universe. Due to the expansion of the Universe the HI line is predicted to be redshifted somewhere in the range 115 - 180 MHz. Pinning down the so-called Epoch of Reionization (EoR) when the first stars turned on, ionizing the hydrogen, is a key science driver for current instruments such as LOFAR as well as new flagship instruments like SKA. The radio spectrum is especially rich in spectral lines and nearly 200 molecular species are known in cosmic sources, mostly discovered at radio wavelengths, and 50 in comets. Increasingly complex organic molecules have been detected in the interstellar gas and in star- and planet- forming nebulae. CO (carbon monoxide) and other small molecules like HCO+ and HCN are general tracers akin to atomic hydrogen but at much higher frequencies. CO lines appear at 115.3, 230.5, 345.8, … GHz. 3 5.1.2. A History of discovery Radio astronomy began when Karl Jansky of Bell Labs serendipitously detected radio waves from the center of the Milky Way in 1932. Radio astronomy’s biggest discovery occurred in 1965 when newly-hired Bell Labs radio astronomers Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias identified a faint cosmic microwave signal that was subsequently shown to originate in the Big Bang, demonstrating the origin of the Universe and its expansion in a grand explosion at the beginning of time. Both discoveries occurred during efforts to quantify the noise in telecommunication systems, in Jansky’s case it was a terrestrial system, and later it was for a satellite link. In the meantime, radio astronomy had progressed to the point that its methods were used to refine the operation of a satellite telecommunication system. The first of four Nobel Prizes in physics related to