Nasa has found a satellite launched back in 1964 is already floating in space! Last year, a group of scientists found a curious phenomenon called fast radio burst (FRB), like a very fast and strong radio signal. This normally comes from far, far away places in space – even other galaxies – but this time it came from something going around Earth. It was the Relay 2 which hasn’t worked for many years, but it’s still there floating around for more than 50 years!
Satellites have been protagonists of NASA discoveries so many times, but this time is a bit different. So, let’s see this story in more detail!
What NASA found
On the 13th of June of 2024, some scientists, with the help of the ASKAP telescope in Australia, found what seemed to be a FRB, but it came from a not too far distance: around 4,500 km from Earth.
After some precise analysis, astronomers determined the signal was the same as the Relay 2 satellite trajectory. This was launched by NASA in 1064, but stopped working in 1967. So, it was strange to have any signal from it.
The meaning behind the initials FRB
FRB stands for Fast Radio Burst and it’s a very fast and powerful flash of radio waves coming from outer space. The striking thing about this story is that FRB tends to come from very far away, even billions of light years, but this one was detected in Earth’s orbit.
How could this satellite keep sending signals?
The satellite Relay 2 was what scientists from NASA found when they detected something strange. This old satellite doesn’t function anymore, so how is it possible it keeps sending signals? Well, scientists have 2 possible reasons for this situation:
- Electrostatic discharge: satellites accumulate electricity in space and, if they accumulate enough electricity, they can release it all at once and produce a radio signal.
- Hit of a tiny space rock: sometimes there are tiny space rocks floating in space called micrometeorites, that can hit satellites and produce a kind of energy explosion that can also send a signal.
In this case, scientists believe the signal was created by a discharge of electricity accumulated.
The Relay 2
A satellite is a machine NASA launches into space for different missions like capturing pictures of Earth, helping with internet signals, or communicating through our phones.
The Relay 2 was one of the first communication satellites NASA launched. Although it lasted for a short amount of time, it never came back to Earth so it’s still floating around our planet and it’s considered space junk.
Importance of this discovery
This may not be one of those NASA discoveries that show us incredible images or information about strange phenomena, but it’s still very relevant for many reasons.
There are many things we can learn thanks to this finding: distinguishing real signals from distant space sent by human things (like satellites), knowing old satellites can cause trouble, and understanding how electric discharges can damage satellites. This latter example is very important because there are many active satellites which are very useful in our everyday life, think about GPS or the Internet.
Basically, this NASA discovery may seem not so spectacular, but it shows that even those satellites that don’t work anymore, interfere with science and confuse scientists. This is why they started to study more objects like this, to avoid future mistakes and understand how to keep using space in a safe way. So, next time you see another news about NASA, you should read it because you never know how useful that might be for us.