The idea for this article came to me at an unlikely time. I was waylaid at my parents’ house with a sudden, terrible stomach bug. I had intended to visit for the day, and wound up stuck there overnight while they cared for my toddler! No way could I drive back home. While I was lying around unable to sleep, I read through an issue of Science Magazine. An article titled “Your self-driving car could kill radio astronomy” caught my eye.
I didn’t really know anything about radio astronomy. I knew astronomers collected all sorts of signals from the sky, but it hadn’t crossed my mind that these might be the same types of signals that wireless devices are using. Basically, in the same way that bright city lights make it difficult to see stars, cell phones and other wireless devices overwhelm other types of signals that astronomers are trying to collect.
I never even knew this problem existed. And I thought it was absolutely fascinating. All the awesome advances in technology that people are excited about could cause problems for scientific research. I thought that kids should know about this. So I pitched the idea to Science News for Students, and got the go-ahead. In a happy coincidence, I soon found out that a current DARPA challenge focuses on finding a better way to share the radio spectrum. Perfect! I was very happy with how the article came out.
cool.