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By Busang Sethole, Spectrum and Telecom Engineer, South African Radio Astronomy Observatory Radio astronomy is undergoing one of its most transformative periods since the invention of the radio telescope. Single-dish instruments such as China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) ꟷ currently the world’s largest filled-aperture radio telescope ꟷ continue advancing pulsar, neutral hydrogen, and transient astronomy.

By Vincenza Tornatore, Senior Scientist, Politecnico di Milano, Italy, and Hayo Hase, German Head of the Argentinean-German Geodetic Observatory, La Plata, Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy, Germany “Radio astronomy” is defined in the ITU Radio Regulations under provision 1.13 as astronomy based on the reception of radio waves of cosmic origin, with 1.58 stipulating a dedicated “radio astronomy service” for such uses.

By Neeraj Gupta, Professor, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), India, and Bärbel S. Koribalski, Senior Principal Research Scientist, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe. Every galaxy contains vast reservoirs of neutral hydrogen gas, which is the primary fuel for star formation.

By Emma van der Wateren, Instrument Scientist, ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, The Committee on Radio Astronomy Frequencies (CRAF) and Jack Burns, Professor Emeritus and Associate Director, Colorado Space Policy Center, and affiliated to University of Colorado Boulder The exploration of the early evolutionary stages of our Universe – the Cosmic Dawn, the Epoch of Reionization, and the even earlier Dark Ages – addresses a key gap in our understanding of the Universe.

By Boris Sorokin, SKA Observatory, United Kingdom, and Masaaki Hiramatsu, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS), Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan A microwave oven is starting to heat a meal, while a laptop comes alive on a kitchen table. The video call connects and the music starts. Most of this works and exists because some things didn’t go as expected.

By Doreen Bogdan-Martin, ITU Secretary-General Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way we work, learn, govern and innovate. It is creating extraordinary opportunities, while also forcing us to confront important questions about fairness, trust and inclusion. Today, women make up less than 30 per cent of the global AI workforce, and only about 15 per cent occupy leadership positions in the field.

By Balthasar Indermuehle, Radio Astronomer and Spectrum Manager, CSIRO (Australia); Chair, ITU-R Working Party 7D, and Federico Di Vruno, Spectrum Manager, SKA Observatory; Vice-Chair, ITU-R Working Party 7D; Associate Director, IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky Radio astronomy detects some of the faintest signals in the universe. Faint echoes from cosmic hydrogen, the ticking of distant pulsars, and the signatures of magnetic fields of galaxies all reach us as radio waves.

By Balthasar Indermuehle, Principal Scientist and Spectrum Manager, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia, and Chair, ITU-R Working Party 7D, and Ashley VanderLey, Senior Advisor, U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Office of International Science and Engineering, United States, and Vice-Chair, ITU-R Working Party 7D Radio astronomy reveals a universe whose brightest sources are dimmer than a mobile phone on the Moon.

By Boris Sorokin, Radio Spectrum Engineer, SKA Observatory, United Kingdom Somewhere in the vast depths of space, a photon leaves a distant source, threads across thousands of light-years of empty space, and arrives – faint and ancient – at a radio dish on Earth. But what if that emission source is not of a natural origin? The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) exists because we have decided to take that seriously.

Rapid advances in technology raise complex policy questions for every country and sector. The upcoming World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF-26) will bring governments, industry, academia, civil society and the technical community together in Nassau, The Bahamas, from 2 to 4 September 2026 to explore how digital technologies can support a more inclusive, sustainable, resilient and innovative future.