Detection of Thermal Emission at Millimeter Wavelengths from Low-Earth Orbit Satellites

Detection of Thermal Emission at Millimeter Wavelengths from Low-Earth Orbit Satellites

Blog Article

The detection of satellite thermal emission at millimeter wavelengths is presented using data from the 3rd-Generation receiver on the South Pole Telescope (SPT-3G).This represents the first reported detection of thermal emission from artificial satellites at millimeter wavelengths.Satellite thermal emission is shown to be detectable at high signal-to-noise Black Cherry on timescales as short as a few tens of milliseconds.

An algorithm for downloading orbital information and tracking known satellites given observer constraints and time-ordered observatory pointing is described.Consequences for cosmological surveys and short-duration transient searches are discussed, revealing that the integrated thermal emission from all large satellites does not contribute significantly to the SPT-3G survey intensity map.Measured satellite positions are found to be discrepant from their two-line element (TLE) derived ephemerides up to several arcminutes which may present a difficulty in cross-checking or masking satellites from NUTRA SEA + D short-duration transient searches.