Starlink's Leaked Signals Are 10,000 Times Brighter Than the Cosmic Dawn Astronomers Are Hunting

Starlink Signal Leakage Threatens Radio Astronomy's Most Critical Frequencies

A Curtin University team analyzed 76 million radio images from the SKA-Low prototype in Australia and catalogued 112,534 unintended emissions from 1,806 Starlink satellites across 73–235 MHz, the exact band needed to detect neutral hydrogen from the cosmic dawn. Some leakage reaches 10⁶ Jy/beam, roughly 10,000 times stronger than the target signals, and lands inside ITU-protected bands. Because the ITU only regulates intentional transmissions, this hardware leakage sits in a legal gray zone, leaving astronomers without protection.