The Earth’s atmosphere is filled with a blizzard of amplified radio waves; media broadcasts, cell phone signals, radar signals, you name it. This is a current that is critical to sustaining our earth civilization, but unfortunately it is also an impediment to ground-based radio telescopes.

Astronomers who want to receive radio signals from far reaches of space must see through increasingly noisy fog.

Some scientists and engineers have plans to deal with the noise. This group of West Virginia University researchers hopes to improve radio telescopes’ ability to detect and filter out non-space noise with the help of a $510,000 grant from the US National Science Foundation. The researchers plan to offer their works to the astronomy community free of charge.

The plan consists of three parts. First, researchers will create new methods and algorithms that can detect and classify radio signals for astronomers to filter. Second, they will test these algorithms on new and improved radio telescope equipment. Finally, they will develop new metrics to measure how well radio telescopes can see through obstacles.

The researchers say any algorithms, software and methods resulting from the project will be available for other astronomers to use as they see fit. Radio astronomers in particular need the extra telescope sensitivity they can get. To truly answer some of the most pressing questions in the field, such as what causes fast radio bursts, scientists need to be able to detect extremely weak signals coming from extremely remote areas and filter out the noise that might get in.

“The success of this work will be measured not only by our development of the proposed algorithms, but also by their acceptance, successful use, and expansion by the broader international astronomy community,” said Kevin Bandura, a professor of engineering at West Virginia University. said project leaders in a statement.

But radio interference isn’t the only human-caused problem disrupting astronomers’ research. Satellites orbiting Earth already create light and radio waves that distort telescopic images of space. Some astronomers worry that human-caused climate change, which makes the atmosphere warmer and wetter, will negatively impact the performance of telescopes that work best in dry conditions. Source