An automated data-sharing system co-developed by SpaceX and American radio astronomers promises to protect radio telescopes around the world from disruptive interference from satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Big constellations such as SpaceX's Starlink bring high-speed internet to people in remote, under-connected areas. But they also stain optical telescope images with streaks and disrupt observations by radio telescopes — highly sensitive antennas designed to detect weak radio waves emitted by distant galactic cores, black holes and neutron stars.

Astronomers building the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) in Australia and South Africa, for example, have said that radio interference from LEO satellites could obscure signals that indicate the presence of alien life outside th

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