The International Telecommunication Union issues a blog series on radio astronomy

Radio astronomy is an integral part of fundamental research. Its loss would severely impact astronomical and physical research as a whole, and even render some research branches impossible. It is therefore of the utmost importance to enable the existence of radio astronomy next to other users of the radio spectrum. 

Mobile and satellite communication, radar, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a multitude of other applications share the radio spectrum with radio astronomy. The difference is that radio astronomy is a passive service, which cannot affect other services, while active services can affect the sensitive radio astronomy observations all the time. The radio spectrum is a scarce resource and the various services can coexist without interfering with each other only through regulation. At the international level, this happens within the framework of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-R). Due to the high sensitivity of radio telescopes, astronomers must participate in the negotiation processes for regulating the radio spectrum. This is the only way to ensure that the importance of radio astronomy is given due consideration and that the telescopes are sufficiently protected from harmful interference by other users of the spectrum.

It is therefore a very good sign that some of our colleagues have been asked by ITU-R News to write a blog series on radio astronomy. In this series, they explain how important astronomy is to society and how it could coexist with other services. We would like to thank the editorial team at ITU-R News and all astronomers contributing to this interesting series, which sheds light on the interesting policy issues around radio astronomical research. The first blog posts have already been published; more will follow gradually.