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17-Year-Old Radio Astronomy Mystery Traced Back To Kitchen Microwave

Posted by samzenpus on from the give-it-another-30-secs dept.

New submitter Bo'Bob'O writes: The BBC reports that the scientists at the Parkes and Bleien Radio Observatories in New South Wales, Australia, have tracked down earth-based signals that had been eluding observation for 17 years. These signals, which came to be called Perytons "occurred only during office hours and predominantly on weekdays." The source, as it turned out, was located right inside the antenna's tower where impatient scientists had been opening the kitchen microwave door before its cycle had finished. As the linked paper concludes, this, and a worn magnetron caused a condition that allowed the microwaves to emit a burst of frequencies not expected by the scientists, only compounding the original mystery.

2 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. Not news by MPBoulton · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I worked at Jodrell Bank (the largest radio telescope in the UK) for a summer almost 10 years ago, and their on-site kitchen microwave was surrounded by a Faraday cage to prevent the microwave from interferring with signals picked up by the telescope.

    To imply that astronomers had no idea that the microwave could be responsible is just a lie, this is a well-known problem that was solved a long time ago.

  2. AT&T DSL mystery tied to faulty CFL ballast by whyde · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I had a friend who was bemoaning how his "crappy" AT&T DSL service would flake out every evening at about the same time, and he'd had techs out to replace his DSL modem twice, re-do the wiring to his house, everything! He asked me whether I was happy with TWC (I wasn't), because he was fed up and was going to switch.

    We got talking in general. I asked him whether he'd also done any renovating around his house, no matter what type. He admitted that he'd recently replaced all of his exterior house lights with CFL equivalents, and I asked him whether any were on timers, sensors, etc. He admitted that there was an exterior flood light on a light sensor.

    I asked him if that sensor turned on that lamp about the same time of day his DSL service flaked out. His expression dropped. He replaced that one light with an incandescent, and the problem went away.