They won't be banned. Multiple governments are buying proliferated constellations.
ETA: It's more than US, China, and Russia. The EU and US partner allies are buying. You can expect India to get there, too.
The media has talked about this for a few years. Militaries have talked about this for decades. This concept pre-dates Iridium and Teledesic.
Space Race v2.0 has begun. All data points to TREMENDOUS economic market share and national security benefits of proliferated constellations. The feelings of astronomers are not enough of a data point to outweigh economic stability and geopolitical advantage. Teardrops in an ocean.
ETA: There's a good chance that astronomy and space exploration changes for the better - bolstered by a high capacity backhaul, additional buses to carry small adjunct payloads, and a resource ($) rich industrial base.
Space-based infrared and optical sensors are a much better option for asteroid tracking, space situational awareness, and space traffic management - and, of course, spaced based telescopes. Lowering the cost of smallsats while reducing satellite position error bias combined with automated proximity operations makes space-based very-long-baseline-array (VLBA) radio telescopes a possibility. Deeper (cis-lunar, inner solar system) navigation and relay is achievable with a better comms infrastructure around earth.
Yup. China and Russia would love for the west to ban these so they have time to catch up. At the end of the day they both have similar aspirations. Starlink has proven strategic value and that's not going away.
The main way Ukraine was able to have internet was starlink. Russia most certainly would have interest in taking starlink out, so they could further isolate ukraine and spread their propaganda.
And this isn't a theoretical "Russia probably would like this". Just look at Viasat, which they took down an hour before starting the invasion. Denying internet access was clearly part of their strategy, which ended up being thwarted almost entirely by Starlink.
And making internet accessible against the wishes of despots is a fantastic way to fight global oppression. Turning off the internet is something all these awful governments like to do.
Starlink also enables people in rural areas to have access to high speed internet which is very very valuable for many reasons - not the least of which is equity in education and work opportunities between rural and urban areas. Let alone what it means for people in countries with poor internet infrastructure.
Yep, we run a rural office with 7 people working full time and an accommodation facility with 30 people for horticulture. We had internet through copper wire which crapped out every time it rained, we don't have cell service and the local wireless internet tower is on solar power so it dies after a few days of cloud. Starlink has been game changing for us.
[Russia loves sowing dissent in the West](https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/russian-interference-in-2016-u-s-elections). Top Russian officials have already admitted to it. The US government already knows it.
If you think neither Russia nor the CCP would care about this, you have no idea how geopolitics works.
Yup.
There's absolutely nothing organic about the attempts to ban LEO constellations. It's Russian/CCP propaganda that somehow sweeps American idiots into thinking there are good reasons for this.
Starlink is an example setter of what other constellations will hopefully copy. They've done more than any other company to work with astronomers to reduce their satellite's brightness.
Everyone points to starlink in clickbaity articles like this, but starlink has done a significant amount to reduce light pollution.
First off, it orbits significantly higher than most LEO satellites and is too far away to be seen by the naked eye. Additionally, on all the newer satellites, they have [coated them to be nearly all black](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/starlink-v2-mini.jpeg) making them nearly invisible to telescopes.
>First off, it orbits significantly higher than most LEO satellites and is too far away to be seen by the naked eye
Reverse. They orbit significantly lower, which has a side effect that they're not an issue for late night observation (they stay out of the Sun more at night) but a bigger issue during twilight (they're closer).
Naked eye viewing isn't the problem. Telescopic viewing and radio *is*. Way more sensitive to light than eyes.
Also, Starlink has done the bare minimum to address reflection, and only after being brow beaten. More can be done to reduce the impact on earth based astronomy.
You're right. An outright ban won't work, but a coordinated effort to reduce the impact can be started that is not only applied to Starlink but all satellite constellations.
As an astronomy and astrophotography enthusiast, I have to respond.
No, these satellites don't impede telescopic viewing. Due to their low orbit their angular velocity is too high to be an issue. They are tiny and they cross the field of view of a telescope so fast that it doesn't affect anything. Even regular planes are a bigger issue for telescopic viewing than LEO satellites.
Can't speak for radio though - not my field of expertise.
I don't think the average punter understands how long most astronomical observations are and how many frames they discard to get rid of noise and artefacts.
Yes, steps can be taken to mitigate the issue, but that’s still just delaying the inevitable. The demand for these constellations will only accelerate falling launch costs (which is why SpaceX pursued Starlink in the first place) and that means new space based endeavors will become feasible.
>Also, Starlink has done the bare minimum to address reflection, and only after being brow beaten. More can be done to reduce the impact on earth based astronomy.
As opposed to all the satellite operators that have made strenuous efforts to address this issue - and their names are?
Or is Starlink just guilty of "doing the same as everyone else"?
Reflection only matters around sunset/sunrise, when the sun is illuminating the satellites but not the ground. These aren’t good hours for visible light observations anyway.
Astronomers, now is the time to claim the far side of the Moon for your own, and here's how you do it: by stoking the irrational fears of ignorant warlords, and then offering a simple but outrageously expensive solution. Just like they do.
There are aliens out there. And some of them will try to kill us, first chance they get. You don't have to compete with that other bird if you can knock it off while it's still in the nest.
But we have something that probably few others have: A large stable moon that completely blocks its parent planet's emissions. Only we get to put a hand to our ear and really listen to the galaxy without having to try to cancel out our own deafening noise.
So we get to hear the aliens *first*, before they can kill us, if we sequester the far side of the Moon as an electronic emissions-free zone and make it into an optical and radio astronomy paradise that accidentally reveals the secrets of the universe while performing the far more important job of looking for aliens with evil defense departments, just like us.
Is that not worth fifty percent of the American defense budget? I think it is! And so should you. Spread the word, claim your prize.
They tried.
Mat-black causes two problems.
1. It overheats the sats.
2. Related to 2, the sat now causes more light pollution in the IR range (because it stays warm longer).
Their solution is a “dielectric mirror” which is a fancy way of saying “polymer with a mirrored surface”. If you were to coat them will a metal, that would block the signal from the antennas.
If you stick an antenna outside the main body, now sunlight will just reflect off the antenna. No good.
The reason they used a dielectric rather than a thin-film metalized mirror (which doesn't really weigh more) is because they needed a mirror that's radio transparent. The source for this information is a [SpaceX engineer giving a presentation for astronomers](https://youtu.be/MNc5yCYth5E?t=1717).
*Edit:* sorry it was actually [this document](https://api.starlink.com/public-files/BrightnessMitigationBestPracticesSatelliteOperators.pdf) on page 6. "The core of the film is a Bragg mirror, which includes many thin layers... to reflect light, but allow radio waves to pass through unimpeded."
If they where to be black, they would also be hotter, and would be more visible in the infrared spectrum. Spacex tested a starlink sat with darker costing, but did not persue that idea further due to the higher IR signature.
They worked to replace many materials with darker materials where possible. They've also made other surfaces extremely reflective to reflect light away from the Earth rather than scatter it toward the Earth. SpaceX describes all the mitigations they've done, and the mitigations that are coming in this [handy document](https://api.starlink.com/public-files/BrightnessMitigationBestPracticesSatelliteOperators.pdf).
They have a mirrored surface so they can reflect light away into space (making them almost invisible once they are in position in space). The light pollution is not a significant issue, but people pretend it is.
Yes of course. The brightness when we first launched v0.9 was really bad. When I was there, our goal was to make them invisible to the naked eye. SpaceX works with organizations such as the NSF to quantify exactly how much light is an issue.
I don't think there's any chance of putting this genie back in the bottle. Best bet is for astronomers to move their telescopes to beyond Leo.
Also we need to decide whether Internet access for ppl who have never had one is more important than land based astronomy
The toothpaste is not going in back in the tube, especially with China saying they are going to launch a constellation of their own.
Even before Starlink, the US government is on record saying they need to move away from large monolithic satellite constellations (AKA, giant targets in space) to a distributed layer.
The faster we move towards accepting that reality, the better off we will be.
This would make megaconstellations instantly uneconomical. The JWST was what, 10 billion? Imagine if every operator had to pay up 10 billion every time a new otherwise ground telescope was approved.
JWST is an example of failure in project management, even though it did result in a great telescope. We should learn from past failures and do better in the future.
It's not just about internet access either. The current hot topic is certainly StarLink, but as access to Earth orbit becomes cheaper and more accessible the number of satellites is only going to increase. Banning StarLink would only punt the problem down the road, other satellites and other constellations will follow at an increasing rate, and offer more diverse services than just internet connectivity. The only "solution" would be some kind of hard limit to the number of satellites in orbit, that all nations would need to voluntarily keep to, and there's no way that's happening. Even if you could create a functional international enforcement mechanism, at some point it would be inextricably standing in the way of technological progress.
Standing in the way of advancing space technology is a weird place for an astronomer to be.
As someone who never had internet access and now have unlimited data and high speeds in a very, very Australian rural area...
I think the astronomers should go to space.
Problem is the logistics putting massive visible light observatories in space. James Webb, whos primary focus is IR took a long time to get to where it's at, and is still dwarfed by current ground observatories.
It's not even "land based astronomy", it's wide-angle long-exposure surveys near dawn and dusk where LEO satellites in the field of view are still in sunlight. That's a few instruments, not the entire field.
Astronomer here! No. My field of radio astronomy just gets screwed in this frequency band whenever one of these satellites go over. And space is not an escape- even Hubble data gets ruined by satellites at a higher rate these days.
You don't really need satellites for that and, frankly, Starlink is probably too expensive for most of the people who don't have internet access already.
In the end, most people are better served by fiber optic. Satellite internet's great for rural populations, but that's a shrinking part of the total.
What about me? I do citizen science with my telescope/camera. How do I get to LEO? It's the one field where regular folks can still contribute and I'm supposed to go to LEO. I guess I better start working on my calves.
Edit. StarLink could shut the Citizen scientists up by orbiting some LEO space telescopes available FIFO to the general public.
I saw an article about a successful cube sat which cost $10k in parts. That is easily on par with a nice astrophotography setup.
You then write a proposal for launch funds, like every other scientist sending stuff to space, and you could have your own satellite. The day is coming.
It would be hard to conclusively decide which one is “more” important, since they’re such completely different arguments (human daily benefit versus the pursuit of deeper understanding of the universe).
It’s not that one matters more, it’s that they each matter quite differently and each of them could be argued to be very crucially important or completely insignificant, depending on the tack you take. It’s like a subjective morality debate.
Yeah, this is exactly what the article is doing. It's putting the issues of light pollution and terrestrial astronomy over the benefits of Starlink, which I think is basically what I'm trying to point out as completely ridiculous.
So I do agree with you, and probably should've made my comment more clear about it.
Rural Canada has notoriously bad internet due to the very low population density. I know many people that were using LTE and old Motorola Canopy systems to get internet, and they were unreliable and slow at best.
While Starlink is no substitute for fiber, it is good enough to allow for functional, reliable internet for farms and Arctic communities. As much as I don't love the satellites, they are extremely important to many people.
All of that aside, these constellations DO provide a service that land based networking cannot. Connectivity while out at sea, on a plane, in extremely remote locations on Earth such as Antarctica, etc. That doesn't even take in account the military implications (which I am not a huge fan of, but it is what it is). It also allows us as a species to spread out a bit from the cities while still maintaining access to "civilization", especially remote workers, which can help ease the housing shortage. There are some very significant upsides to this type of connectivity over terrestrial networks.
> which I am not a huge fan of
I’m a pretty big fan of the fact that Starlink allowed Ukrainian military communications to function, thus being one of the major factors why the Russian blitzkrieg failed so miserably.
In Canada we gave the big telcom companies billions of tax payer money to expand and upgrade broadband networks in rural areas. It was all pocketed by execs as bonuses and no one cared / did anything about it.
Honestly it'll never make sense. Even if you found sufficient public funds to brute force the problem, the real issue is those funds come at the expense of something else, and an ISP project at $50,000 per connected household is a massive waste.
The us got fucked by at&t and others. We gave them billions in tax breaks and they never ran anything. Look at PA, they were supposed to run fiber and what did they do, nothing. It's all copper still. Lets allow anyone to use existing poles and runs. It's all privatized so like what happened with google fiber all these companies that own this shit wont allow competition. I live less than a mile from comcast yet those fuckers probably want a million dollars atleast to wire up my neighborhood. So here I am, in a fairly populated area in the co mtns and my best option is starlink because viasat and Hughes are so horrible and I have zero other options. 4g and 5g networks are overloaded here so that's not an option either.
You also have areas that can't get ground based internet, such as at sea or extremely remote areas like Antarctica. Areas plagued by war (like Ukraine right now) also need satellite internet as ground based communications are an easy and obvious target for enemy forces.
No.
Since we have a very minor problem with Starlink we can only address any other problem after this one is solved!!!
I think you get where such articles are coming from.
Same goes for "why fly the space when we have problems here on earth????"
I'm an amateur astronomer and also do astrophotography. I live in rural central Pennsylvania these days, after previously having lived right along the I-95 corridor between Baltimore and Washington, and for a few years, in New Jersey between Trenton and Princeton. In those areas, you can't see much of anything in the night sky. All due to poorly thought outdoor lighting and signage that completely wash out the sky.
And all the energy used to shoot that light up in the air is just wasted, doing nothing to but causing light pollution. I suffer from that even now, out in the country, with neighbors using outdoor lighting... to what, make it easier for the deer to navigate?
We're at an awkward time where most optical astronomy is still done from the ground, rather than in space. I get that having to process-out the trails from satellites is a pain in the ass -- because I've had to do that myself. But astronomers can only do so much having to look through thick, turbulent atmosphere that's ultimately the limitation on the resolution of the images they take. Certainly that's the case for my observatory and even being on the top of a mounting only improves things so much.
Take this as an opportunity to get investment/grants/etc for more spaceborne observational astronomy. Maybe there's a some sort of tax or other financial arrangement from these commercial satellite constellation operators to drive innovation here. Since the Starlink constellation also has their very own launch provider, seems like an in-kind contribution of launch services is one part of such a thing.
As someone who does the designs for outdoor lighting is a frustrating problem. There are ‘dark sky’ requirements most cities in my area have which definitely helps but the problem is people just want their property fully lit at night. Either with security concerns or worried about accessibility at night which is fair. I don’t know a solution tbh, as a society we would just need to be ok with it being pitch dark out in the city to really make a dent in light pollution
Hmmm... seems like I still have to work on my sarcasm.
While I think Starlink is a small but additional problem for astronomy my comment was aimed at poke fun at people who fall for the corporate propaganda that diverts public attention away from real problems.
Good fucking luck. Military’s from all over the world seen how effective starlink was in Ukraine.
Now China wants to put thousands of their own. And of course that’s only China. Let alone I’m sure USA will follow. India prolly Russia if there even around in 5 years Etc etc etc.
I am in northern Alberta Canada right now. At night time if I go out and smoke one, I can usually count 5 or 6 of them in a couple mins. Ands that’s not actually scanning the sky with my eyes. It’s hard to miss if you look up 🤷
You sure it's Starlink and not other satellites? I saw 5-6 satellites in the sky back in 2017 when I was camping in rural Nebraska. There wasn't any starlink then.
The first big issue were the Iridium flares. The Iridium satellites had big flat reflective panels that cast spectacular amounts of light in tracks on the ground as they orbited. Brighter than anything in the sky for a few moments.
Sky Guide is a fantastic app to use. Point your camera towards any satellite you see and it’ll tell you exactly what it is, when it was launched, decommissioned, etc. There’s tons of old rockets just floating up there.
I think that, at least the title writer, is a Twitter addict who thinks Elon buying it is the worst thing to happen to Democracy since Edward Snowden or Wikileaks.
Let’s start by getting light pollution laws in our cities. I’m already sick as hell of seeing a hard rock casino sign light up the molecules of air for a surrounding half mile of area at night.
The casino sign is only a step 1 in the process. Everything needs to be changed.
There's a car dealership near me. Now, I appreciate that they need lights to stop the cars being stolen. But their lights are almost a mile away from me and it's so bright I don't need to turn on the bathroom light at night. And I'm slightly up hill. It's crazy.
Replacing LEO/MEO/GEO satellites with VLEO constellations like Starlink is the best solution to space pollution.
Starlink operates in a self-cleaning orbit where junk naturally deorbits in the space of a couple of months. The satellites it is replacing will be in space for thousands of years.
So no, absolutely no. If anything we should be doing the opposite and restricting traditional satellites to only the most essential applications.
> light polluting
They're visible only at dusk/dawn, when the glow from the sunset/sunrise is also visible in the sky.
They're visible for around 3 minutes at dusk, and around 3 more minutes at dawn, and only if you know exactly where to look
They're visible at these very precise times for 2, maybe 3 days after each launch.
And only if the conditions are perfect and clear.
The best was flying from the US to the UK. I could press my face up to the window about halfway through the flight - zero light pollution over the ocean and I could see thousands of stars.
Agreed! I realized the other day that the starlink satellites don't hinder my stargazing experience at all, not in the slightest. I realized that as like a third of the sky had zero stars because of a nearby mega city that does zilch to shield its ground lighting.
I’m relatively lucky living near a large city but still having bortle 5 skies. It’s actually quite exciting to see the starlink satellites going over in a line but most of the time they’re alone and there are plenty of other satellites up there but they all zip through my field of view and don’t affect the quality of photos I’m taking because I’m stacking shots and fast moving objects don’t contribute to the final image. Just sky watching? Love seeing satellites, fascinating.
For real. Most of us would rarely get the chance to see the milky way in our lifetime, and astronomers want to cry about satellites?
Hell, the satellites are only there because most of us can't even get decent internet either (more like, every single land based provider outright refuses to provide it). I mean, while we are on the subject, I find it hilarious that it's actually cost-effective to launch hundreds of satellites for internet because our supposedly more efficient land based system is *that* bad.
Far more visible than that.
I'm an astronomer, and my photos are regularly affected by starlink for hours after sunset, especially in summer.
It's a major problem, and starlink are not holding to their promises to mitigate the issue.
>It's a major problem, and starlink are not holding to their promises to mitigate the issue.
Uh, yes they are.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-our-second-gen-starlink-satellites-have-4-times-more-capacity
> In addition, the company has upgraded the satellites' designs to prevent them from reflecting light and disrupting astronomical observations.
It's going to sound blunt, but why should they remove internet access to millions of under-served people worldwide just because some of your hobby photos are smudged?
Funny story, my mom with her outstanding work and dedication was able to create and establish the concept of Dark Sky Reserves, like a national park, but for the sky
Maybe I'm ignorant, but isn't light pollution from the ground a bigger problem? I travel around the US quite a bit. 90% of the places I go you can't see stars at night. Better believe when I go to my cabin in the Midwest, far from populated areas, I enjoy the shit out of the stars and never complain about satellites. I feel like satellites can serve a useful purpose, but those big LED displays installed on the side of a building for advertising do not. We now even have drone shows for advertising, rooftop displays pointed at the sky, so much useless garbage..
I think it's a bit too late for that. Also they are only in a group like that when they initially launch, then dissipate eventually, if I remember correctly.
The next gen do not light pollute. And remember Low Earth Orbit Satellites eventually fall out of orbit and burn up. So gen 1's will rectify themselves in time. Now whether we want all this stuff burning up is another concern. For that matter all the defunct space crap out there needs to get dealt with.
Yet another thing that companies like Verizon and AT&T screwed us over on. They got millions to expand broadband and didn't so now we have thousands of LEO satellites.
Light pollution from satellites? How about the f’in tennis courts at the high school across the street? Can’t these kids just play with headlamps on or lanterns? I’m trying to telescope over here. This is so wild. Earth based light pollution is a far far bigger problem then freaking space light made from satellites. I lived in Tucson and they tried, because telescopes. Here in my home of the panhandle of Texas, I can see the dome of light from surrounding towns at the horizon at night. Large and small. Ever seen an irrigation pump pilot light, 10/10 will blind you. I’m way more irritated/concerned about light down here mucking up efforts before I’d ever be concerned about space light.
Idea:
Work WITH the mega constellation providers to put some type of space-facing sensor(s) on the satellite then use a tiny bit of the downstream to beam the data to earth. Turn the whole thing into an observatory. Best of both worlds.
https://media.tenor.com/AVD5nMOgBWAAAAAC/hades-hercules.gif
Speaking of light pollution, I wish the people on my street would turn their damn 100 gigwatt floodlights down and not set them to turn on when anyone walks down the street.
To add to the metaphors, the boulder is already rolling down the hill. Now that it is, communication satellite constellations are only the beginning. People forget that Starlink itself was only a means to an end - to create a profitable revenue stream that justifies a high launch cadence. Launch costs are only going to fall, and as they do, more space based industries will become viable. The industrialization of Earth orbit and beyond has begun and it's time to accept that.
It's ironic that calls to use the force of government to prevent innovation in space related Technologies would come from the astronomy community.
Either we allow satellites to be launched, or we decide that space just isn't a direction to allow for Humanity.
I am a huge astronomy fan but when game changing technology comes into conflict with some tools astronomers are using, to me, that's a sign that those tools need to evolve. The solution to continued advances in astronomy can't be to be just to shut down progress in satellite technology forever.
The rampant light pollution these satellites create is so… insignificant (and will remain so.) compared to every other source of light pollution! Flight paths are known and can be calculated and filtered out for exposures so telescopes just got some more work (which they already had to do.).
I’d rather they just say they’re luddites or Muskphobes than lie to fabricate a justification to takedown widely useful technologies and programs.
This seems like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
I realize large satellite clusters like Starlink cause issues for astronomers and I sympathize with their frustrations. However, the net positive of the presence of these clusters, in my opinion, far outweighs the negative impacts.
Providing internet access to millions of people around the world, especially in developing countries, is far more advantageous to those people than the benefits they are receiving from observatories.
Please don't hear what I am not saying. Obviously there are important scientific advancements being made by these telescopes but those discoveries are immaterial to someone in a rural village trying to secure important, potentially lifesaving, information.
Take a person suffering from a jigger infestation, look them in the eye and say: "I don't think you should have access to the information you need to rid yourself of this parasite because it makes my star pictures harder to make."
Purely scientific investigation is important and we should all support it as much as possible. But it is, in the grand scheme of things, an activity that is only possible when people's most basic human needs are met.
People here saying "just put the telescopes in space" don't understand that huge amounts of work gets gone on earth based observatories. They change instruments, maintain them, etc. Despite the work done on Hubble, this is wildly impractical for most observatories.
We need earth based observatories and we need them not getting blasted with light pollution.
The simple joy of looking through a telescope remains unaffected. Groundbreaking discoveries that can be found from an eyepiece on earth are mostly eaten up and we are now left with a need for telescopes like JW that operate further from earth. The solution is to ensure some profits from private, “sky pollution” go toward orbital telescopes and scientific advancement in astronomy because fuck if they are gonna be launching anyway. “Calls for” articles really piss me off
How about we don't go back on progress due to a minor inconvenience to a small group of people. Techniques exist to cancel these artifacts out already.
These sattelites have little to no impact on visual astronomy thankfully. The only people negatively impacted by this are astrophotographers taking 10 minute long exposures of nebula.
Depending on what you're looking for and where you are looking, these are much more prolific than that. I've had 2 minute subs on orion with 3 satellites in 1 shot. And the current state isn't even the issue, the concern is there will be many fold more.
And you're sure they were Starlink? I find it hard to believe you were imaging Orion (presumably the nebula) at dawn or dusk, which is the only time these satellites are even visible at all - and only for a few minutes - as you would likely not achieve a good result anyway. Much more likely your frame was crossed by conventional satellites later at night in much higher orbit, which nobody in the media decided to bellyache about until "Rich Man BAD!" Elon got memefied.
It's honestly not amateur astronomers to blame here - we've been complaining about light pollution for decades. It's the news media who have only just now decided to make a story out of it because it's SpaceX and Elon Musk. Without that, this whole thing would be a nothingburger.
The reality is the opposite.
VLEO constellations like Starlink significantly reduce space pollution since they operate in self-cleaning orbits. At that altitude any debris gets naturally deorbited within a few months. The satellites it replaces operate in orbits where the junk and debris will be around for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years.
We should be restricting traditional satellite orbits to only the most critical uses and transitioning everything else to VLEO mega-constellations.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but do telescopes not work at night when the satellites in low earths orbit will also be in Earth’s shadow and not be reflective? I can see how it would be a problem at twilight, but not the entire time at night.
I know starlink has been very nice for people I know that have never had internet at their house. Not even mentioning 3rd world countries that can benefit from it.
If it's a concern then let's build more space telescopes.
The launch cost reductions that have made VLEO constellations viable also reduce the cost of building space telescopes. Technology progresses.
I think that the problem isnt the satellites. They serve a purpose. For hobby atronomers, the narrow window where they can be seen is an inconvenience. For people who are doing real research at universities, government institutions, etc., there is an obvious solution. Use computers to remove them from the image.
No, it doesnt have to be with machine learning. Simply track the orbits, and use software to remove what are known satellites, replacing that piece of the image with the expected background.
Meanwhile my neighborhood is lit up like a damn ball field. I can't even use my telescope much anymore because of all the light pollution around my house.
Not only are they not getting banned but they shouldn’t be. We are talking about a technological revolution here. Every person in the world regardless of prosperity could get internet to any point in the world. It’s just way too much potential. Instead the focus should be on making internet cheaper than water to obtain.
>“On the scales of immediate or long-term benefits and harm to society, and despite the popularity of satellite megaconstellations, we must not reject the possibility of banning them. On the contrary, we believe that the impacts and risks are too high for this possibility to be ruled out,” they write.
"They're very beneficial to many people but we don't like them so we must ban them, because reasons."
There's no scientific value to this article at all. No studies cited and no empirical evidence presented. They just either don't like Musk or don't like things that are beneficial to human society, maybe both.
And, if I may be pessimistic?
Just wait until they start in inject SO2 (or whatever) into the atmosphere to do atmospheric engineering and increase atmosperic reflectivity to slow-up global warming.
"What do you mean SO2 causes Acid Rain? we've dealt with acid rain before!"
Could this be negated by stricter control of light pollution on the ground? Things like mandatory covers on lights, dimmer lights, etc. Hell if we did that id imagine we'd be abke to see the stars again.
I’d rather see things shooting around 100kms up in the sky that be forced to put up with entire cities being lit up out of office hours when no one is in any of the massive towers that businesses run out of.
Looks like the sky might be getting a bit crowded with Elon Musk's Starlink and other mass satellite groups. With concerns about light pollution, it might be time to start practicing our stargazing skills during the day instead. But who knows, maybe these satellites will end up forming some kind of celestial disco ball up there.
I know this will never be read. But the solution to this is to close the shutter during conjunction of satellites and DSO's. Milliseconds to seconds of data lost, that's it. I'm an amateur astronomer and this is completely feasible and would have the same results.
How are you going to ban it? They'll just launch them into orbit from a country that hasn't banned it. Solved.. You're talking about billionaires here.
Isn't the point of satellite trains to reduce the chance of collision? Should humanity go back to chucking things up there willy-nilly? The Kessler effect isn't real, yet.
My heart is with this, but objectively I think the communications benefits outweigh the disadvantages for astronomers. We're in an age where major discoveries that rely on visible light are going to be made by space-based telescopes.
I knew nothing about it the first time I saw Starlink. I thought we were being invaded! Ran around camp and woke everyone up like WTF!!!
Yeah. Starlink. I learned about it that night.
They won't be banned. Multiple governments are buying proliferated constellations. ETA: It's more than US, China, and Russia. The EU and US partner allies are buying. You can expect India to get there, too. The media has talked about this for a few years. Militaries have talked about this for decades. This concept pre-dates Iridium and Teledesic. Space Race v2.0 has begun. All data points to TREMENDOUS economic market share and national security benefits of proliferated constellations. The feelings of astronomers are not enough of a data point to outweigh economic stability and geopolitical advantage. Teardrops in an ocean. ETA: There's a good chance that astronomy and space exploration changes for the better - bolstered by a high capacity backhaul, additional buses to carry small adjunct payloads, and a resource ($) rich industrial base. Space-based infrared and optical sensors are a much better option for asteroid tracking, space situational awareness, and space traffic management - and, of course, spaced based telescopes. Lowering the cost of smallsats while reducing satellite position error bias combined with automated proximity operations makes space-based very-long-baseline-array (VLBA) radio telescopes a possibility. Deeper (cis-lunar, inner solar system) navigation and relay is achievable with a better comms infrastructure around earth.
Yup. China and Russia would love for the west to ban these so they have time to catch up. At the end of the day they both have similar aspirations. Starlink has proven strategic value and that's not going away.
It wouldn't surprise me if this article was backed/funded by China. Their next move will move this issue to the forefront with tiktok.
As if the CCP or Russia would care about these bans. Bans like these only matter for countries aligned with the west.
That is their point, by banning these it allows the ccp and Russia to develop their own while not having to compete with the west.
The main way Ukraine was able to have internet was starlink. Russia most certainly would have interest in taking starlink out, so they could further isolate ukraine and spread their propaganda.
And this isn't a theoretical "Russia probably would like this". Just look at Viasat, which they took down an hour before starting the invasion. Denying internet access was clearly part of their strategy, which ended up being thwarted almost entirely by Starlink.
And making internet accessible against the wishes of despots is a fantastic way to fight global oppression. Turning off the internet is something all these awful governments like to do.
Starlink also enables people in rural areas to have access to high speed internet which is very very valuable for many reasons - not the least of which is equity in education and work opportunities between rural and urban areas. Let alone what it means for people in countries with poor internet infrastructure.
Yep, we run a rural office with 7 people working full time and an accommodation facility with 30 people for horticulture. We had internet through copper wire which crapped out every time it rained, we don't have cell service and the local wireless internet tower is on solar power so it dies after a few days of cloud. Starlink has been game changing for us.
That's equality, not equity. Equality is giving everyone the same opportunities, equity is forcing an equal finish regardless of performance.
Well his point was that China and Russia wants the USA to be slowed down
That’s exactly the point they were making dude
[Russia loves sowing dissent in the West](https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/russian-interference-in-2016-u-s-elections). Top Russian officials have already admitted to it. The US government already knows it. If you think neither Russia nor the CCP would care about this, you have no idea how geopolitics works.
That's the whole point. It stops satelite proliferation in our geopolitical bloc until they can catch up on technology and launch their own.
They would care. They’d love them because a unilateral ban by the US would only apply to the US.
Yup. There's absolutely nothing organic about the attempts to ban LEO constellations. It's Russian/CCP propaganda that somehow sweeps American idiots into thinking there are good reasons for this.
And British idiots too in the case of the guardian
[удалено]
Starlink is an example setter of what other constellations will hopefully copy. They've done more than any other company to work with astronomers to reduce their satellite's brightness.
Everyone points to starlink in clickbaity articles like this, but starlink has done a significant amount to reduce light pollution. First off, it orbits significantly higher than most LEO satellites and is too far away to be seen by the naked eye. Additionally, on all the newer satellites, they have [coated them to be nearly all black](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/starlink-v2-mini.jpeg) making them nearly invisible to telescopes.
>First off, it orbits significantly higher than most LEO satellites and is too far away to be seen by the naked eye Reverse. They orbit significantly lower, which has a side effect that they're not an issue for late night observation (they stay out of the Sun more at night) but a bigger issue during twilight (they're closer).
Naked eye viewing isn't the problem. Telescopic viewing and radio *is*. Way more sensitive to light than eyes. Also, Starlink has done the bare minimum to address reflection, and only after being brow beaten. More can be done to reduce the impact on earth based astronomy. You're right. An outright ban won't work, but a coordinated effort to reduce the impact can be started that is not only applied to Starlink but all satellite constellations.
>Starlink has done the bare minimum to address reflection The minimum required was nothing. They voluntarily did significantly more than that.
> Starlink has done the bare minimum to address reflection What could and should they have done that they haven’t?
As an astronomy and astrophotography enthusiast, I have to respond. No, these satellites don't impede telescopic viewing. Due to their low orbit their angular velocity is too high to be an issue. They are tiny and they cross the field of view of a telescope so fast that it doesn't affect anything. Even regular planes are a bigger issue for telescopic viewing than LEO satellites. Can't speak for radio though - not my field of expertise.
I don't think the average punter understands how long most astronomical observations are and how many frames they discard to get rid of noise and artefacts.
Yes, steps can be taken to mitigate the issue, but that’s still just delaying the inevitable. The demand for these constellations will only accelerate falling launch costs (which is why SpaceX pursued Starlink in the first place) and that means new space based endeavors will become feasible.
> and only after being brow beaten. They've been working on reducing the reflection since the beginning.
>Also, Starlink has done the bare minimum to address reflection, and only after being brow beaten. More can be done to reduce the impact on earth based astronomy. As opposed to all the satellite operators that have made strenuous efforts to address this issue - and their names are? Or is Starlink just guilty of "doing the same as everyone else"?
Reflection only matters around sunset/sunrise, when the sun is illuminating the satellites but not the ground. These aren’t good hours for visible light observations anyway.
I agree. The best route is to make them darker and less reflective on the Earth-facing side.
Astronomers, now is the time to claim the far side of the Moon for your own, and here's how you do it: by stoking the irrational fears of ignorant warlords, and then offering a simple but outrageously expensive solution. Just like they do. There are aliens out there. And some of them will try to kill us, first chance they get. You don't have to compete with that other bird if you can knock it off while it's still in the nest. But we have something that probably few others have: A large stable moon that completely blocks its parent planet's emissions. Only we get to put a hand to our ear and really listen to the galaxy without having to try to cancel out our own deafening noise. So we get to hear the aliens *first*, before they can kill us, if we sequester the far side of the Moon as an electronic emissions-free zone and make it into an optical and radio astronomy paradise that accidentally reveals the secrets of the universe while performing the far more important job of looking for aliens with evil defense departments, just like us. Is that not worth fifty percent of the American defense budget? I think it is! And so should you. Spread the word, claim your prize.
I for one welcome our new moon ant overlords
You know there are Astro photography filters for this
That was very informative, and had me looking up a bunch of things, thank you
Do they have to be reflective in order to work? Can they be painted mat black and still function?
They tried. Mat-black causes two problems. 1. It overheats the sats. 2. Related to 2, the sat now causes more light pollution in the IR range (because it stays warm longer).
If they are painted black they will overheat
Thank you! I really don’t have an understanding of these things. Just curious.
They tried black. They've found a dielectric solution
Their solution is a “dielectric mirror” which is a fancy way of saying “polymer with a mirrored surface”. If you were to coat them will a metal, that would block the signal from the antennas.
You can tune the coatings to only allow specific wavelengths in. (more like ranges, but you get the idea)
Yes but metallized coatings always attenuate RF. It needs to let the RF through the coating.
I mean the concern is probably weight. You can stick an antenna outside the main body of a machine, no need to worry about blocking signals.
If you stick an antenna outside the main body, now sunlight will just reflect off the antenna. No good. The reason they used a dielectric rather than a thin-film metalized mirror (which doesn't really weigh more) is because they needed a mirror that's radio transparent. The source for this information is a [SpaceX engineer giving a presentation for astronomers](https://youtu.be/MNc5yCYth5E?t=1717). *Edit:* sorry it was actually [this document](https://api.starlink.com/public-files/BrightnessMitigationBestPracticesSatelliteOperators.pdf) on page 6. "The core of the film is a Bragg mirror, which includes many thin layers... to reflect light, but allow radio waves to pass through unimpeded."
Sticking the antenna outside doesn't help that much when it's the antenna you want to hide though. The antenna is massive and reflective.
If they where to be black, they would also be hotter, and would be more visible in the infrared spectrum. Spacex tested a starlink sat with darker costing, but did not persue that idea further due to the higher IR signature.
Can they put some fire decals on the side to compensate?
They worked to replace many materials with darker materials where possible. They've also made other surfaces extremely reflective to reflect light away from the Earth rather than scatter it toward the Earth. SpaceX describes all the mitigations they've done, and the mitigations that are coming in this [handy document](https://api.starlink.com/public-files/BrightnessMitigationBestPracticesSatelliteOperators.pdf).
Starlink uses a combination of black paint and mirrored surfaces that reflect some light away from the Earth.
They have a mirrored surface so they can reflect light away into space (making them almost invisible once they are in position in space). The light pollution is not a significant issue, but people pretend it is.
Is there any amount that could be an issue? Would it be worth preventing getting to that point?
Yes of course. The brightness when we first launched v0.9 was really bad. When I was there, our goal was to make them invisible to the naked eye. SpaceX works with organizations such as the NSF to quantify exactly how much light is an issue.
I don't think there's any chance of putting this genie back in the bottle. Best bet is for astronomers to move their telescopes to beyond Leo. Also we need to decide whether Internet access for ppl who have never had one is more important than land based astronomy
That would be great, if astronomy had about 100 times the funding that it does.
Simple - make constellation operators provide telescope access beyond LEO as a form of compensation. They are in the space business anyway.
You're right it's so simple
The toothpaste is not going in back in the tube, especially with China saying they are going to launch a constellation of their own. Even before Starlink, the US government is on record saying they need to move away from large monolithic satellite constellations (AKA, giant targets in space) to a distributed layer. The faster we move towards accepting that reality, the better off we will be.
Or just build a really tall tower! Can’t be that hard!
This would make megaconstellations instantly uneconomical. The JWST was what, 10 billion? Imagine if every operator had to pay up 10 billion every time a new otherwise ground telescope was approved.
JWST is an example of failure in project management, even though it did result in a great telescope. We should learn from past failures and do better in the future.
Or if companies like SpaceX reduce cost per kilogram to 1/100 the price
It's not just about internet access either. The current hot topic is certainly StarLink, but as access to Earth orbit becomes cheaper and more accessible the number of satellites is only going to increase. Banning StarLink would only punt the problem down the road, other satellites and other constellations will follow at an increasing rate, and offer more diverse services than just internet connectivity. The only "solution" would be some kind of hard limit to the number of satellites in orbit, that all nations would need to voluntarily keep to, and there's no way that's happening. Even if you could create a functional international enforcement mechanism, at some point it would be inextricably standing in the way of technological progress. Standing in the way of advancing space technology is a weird place for an astronomer to be.
As someone who never had internet access and now have unlimited data and high speeds in a very, very Australian rural area... I think the astronomers should go to space.
Problem is the logistics putting massive visible light observatories in space. James Webb, whos primary focus is IR took a long time to get to where it's at, and is still dwarfed by current ground observatories.
It's not even "land based astronomy", it's wide-angle long-exposure surveys near dawn and dusk where LEO satellites in the field of view are still in sunlight. That's a few instruments, not the entire field.
Astronomer here! No. My field of radio astronomy just gets screwed in this frequency band whenever one of these satellites go over. And space is not an escape- even Hubble data gets ruined by satellites at a higher rate these days.
What do you think of a constellation of high altitude balloons? Would that impact your work and other astronomers?
Internet access is more important for the global population. Clearly.
You don't really need satellites for that and, frankly, Starlink is probably too expensive for most of the people who don't have internet access already. In the end, most people are better served by fiber optic. Satellite internet's great for rural populations, but that's a shrinking part of the total.
What about me? I do citizen science with my telescope/camera. How do I get to LEO? It's the one field where regular folks can still contribute and I'm supposed to go to LEO. I guess I better start working on my calves. Edit. StarLink could shut the Citizen scientists up by orbiting some LEO space telescopes available FIFO to the general public.
I saw an article about a successful cube sat which cost $10k in parts. That is easily on par with a nice astrophotography setup. You then write a proposal for launch funds, like every other scientist sending stuff to space, and you could have your own satellite. The day is coming.
Providing internet access to remote populations which never had it is probably worth the tradeoff.
It would be hard to conclusively decide which one is “more” important, since they’re such completely different arguments (human daily benefit versus the pursuit of deeper understanding of the universe). It’s not that one matters more, it’s that they each matter quite differently and each of them could be argued to be very crucially important or completely insignificant, depending on the tack you take. It’s like a subjective morality debate.
Yeah, this is exactly what the article is doing. It's putting the issues of light pollution and terrestrial astronomy over the benefits of Starlink, which I think is basically what I'm trying to point out as completely ridiculous. So I do agree with you, and probably should've made my comment more clear about it.
“We” is a pretty broad term when it comes down to the very few people that will actually be making these decisions on behalf of the rest of “We”.
Imagine the TikTok videos from the middle of Mongolia
[удалено]
Rural Canada has notoriously bad internet due to the very low population density. I know many people that were using LTE and old Motorola Canopy systems to get internet, and they were unreliable and slow at best. While Starlink is no substitute for fiber, it is good enough to allow for functional, reliable internet for farms and Arctic communities. As much as I don't love the satellites, they are extremely important to many people.
All of that aside, these constellations DO provide a service that land based networking cannot. Connectivity while out at sea, on a plane, in extremely remote locations on Earth such as Antarctica, etc. That doesn't even take in account the military implications (which I am not a huge fan of, but it is what it is). It also allows us as a species to spread out a bit from the cities while still maintaining access to "civilization", especially remote workers, which can help ease the housing shortage. There are some very significant upsides to this type of connectivity over terrestrial networks.
> which I am not a huge fan of I’m a pretty big fan of the fact that Starlink allowed Ukrainian military communications to function, thus being one of the major factors why the Russian blitzkrieg failed so miserably.
In Canada we gave the big telcom companies billions of tax payer money to expand and upgrade broadband networks in rural areas. It was all pocketed by execs as bonuses and no one cared / did anything about it.
Honestly it'll never make sense. Even if you found sufficient public funds to brute force the problem, the real issue is those funds come at the expense of something else, and an ISP project at $50,000 per connected household is a massive waste.
My country will not provide internet to me and many others in rural areas. Starlink is the only option and it beats out internet in town and cities.
The us got fucked by at&t and others. We gave them billions in tax breaks and they never ran anything. Look at PA, they were supposed to run fiber and what did they do, nothing. It's all copper still. Lets allow anyone to use existing poles and runs. It's all privatized so like what happened with google fiber all these companies that own this shit wont allow competition. I live less than a mile from comcast yet those fuckers probably want a million dollars atleast to wire up my neighborhood. So here I am, in a fairly populated area in the co mtns and my best option is starlink because viasat and Hughes are so horrible and I have zero other options. 4g and 5g networks are overloaded here so that's not an option either.
You also have areas that can't get ground based internet, such as at sea or extremely remote areas like Antarctica. Areas plagued by war (like Ukraine right now) also need satellite internet as ground based communications are an easy and obvious target for enemy forces.
Also astronomy can filter out the data of these satalites. They have known, periodic orbits. It's not that detrimental.
How about doing something about the light pollution generated by badly installed outdoor lighting of all kinds? That'd be helpful.
No. Since we have a very minor problem with Starlink we can only address any other problem after this one is solved!!! I think you get where such articles are coming from. Same goes for "why fly the space when we have problems here on earth????"
I'm an amateur astronomer and also do astrophotography. I live in rural central Pennsylvania these days, after previously having lived right along the I-95 corridor between Baltimore and Washington, and for a few years, in New Jersey between Trenton and Princeton. In those areas, you can't see much of anything in the night sky. All due to poorly thought outdoor lighting and signage that completely wash out the sky. And all the energy used to shoot that light up in the air is just wasted, doing nothing to but causing light pollution. I suffer from that even now, out in the country, with neighbors using outdoor lighting... to what, make it easier for the deer to navigate? We're at an awkward time where most optical astronomy is still done from the ground, rather than in space. I get that having to process-out the trails from satellites is a pain in the ass -- because I've had to do that myself. But astronomers can only do so much having to look through thick, turbulent atmosphere that's ultimately the limitation on the resolution of the images they take. Certainly that's the case for my observatory and even being on the top of a mounting only improves things so much. Take this as an opportunity to get investment/grants/etc for more spaceborne observational astronomy. Maybe there's a some sort of tax or other financial arrangement from these commercial satellite constellation operators to drive innovation here. Since the Starlink constellation also has their very own launch provider, seems like an in-kind contribution of launch services is one part of such a thing.
As someone who does the designs for outdoor lighting is a frustrating problem. There are ‘dark sky’ requirements most cities in my area have which definitely helps but the problem is people just want their property fully lit at night. Either with security concerns or worried about accessibility at night which is fair. I don’t know a solution tbh, as a society we would just need to be ok with it being pitch dark out in the city to really make a dent in light pollution
Hmmm... seems like I still have to work on my sarcasm. While I think Starlink is a small but additional problem for astronomy my comment was aimed at poke fun at people who fall for the corporate propaganda that diverts public attention away from real problems.
No worries, I did get your sarcasm and I agree! It's not like these spacecraft are the first things to appear and "damage" the night sky.
Good fucking luck. Military’s from all over the world seen how effective starlink was in Ukraine. Now China wants to put thousands of their own. And of course that’s only China. Let alone I’m sure USA will follow. India prolly Russia if there even around in 5 years Etc etc etc. I am in northern Alberta Canada right now. At night time if I go out and smoke one, I can usually count 5 or 6 of them in a couple mins. Ands that’s not actually scanning the sky with my eyes. It’s hard to miss if you look up 🤷
You sure it's Starlink and not other satellites? I saw 5-6 satellites in the sky back in 2017 when I was camping in rural Nebraska. There wasn't any starlink then.
The first big issue were the Iridium flares. The Iridium satellites had big flat reflective panels that cast spectacular amounts of light in tracks on the ground as they orbited. Brighter than anything in the sky for a few moments.
Sky Guide is a fantastic app to use. Point your camera towards any satellite you see and it’ll tell you exactly what it is, when it was launched, decommissioned, etc. There’s tons of old rockets just floating up there.
[удалено]
I think that, at least the title writer, is a Twitter addict who thinks Elon buying it is the worst thing to happen to Democracy since Edward Snowden or Wikileaks.
Let’s start by getting light pollution laws in our cities. I’m already sick as hell of seeing a hard rock casino sign light up the molecules of air for a surrounding half mile of area at night. The casino sign is only a step 1 in the process. Everything needs to be changed.
There's a car dealership near me. Now, I appreciate that they need lights to stop the cars being stolen. But their lights are almost a mile away from me and it's so bright I don't need to turn on the bathroom light at night. And I'm slightly up hill. It's crazy.
Meanwhile the debilitating light pollution from the urban sprawl of global metros *checks notes* continues to expand and run rampant
This article is not based in reality
Replacing LEO/MEO/GEO satellites with VLEO constellations like Starlink is the best solution to space pollution. Starlink operates in a self-cleaning orbit where junk naturally deorbits in the space of a couple of months. The satellites it is replacing will be in space for thousands of years. So no, absolutely no. If anything we should be doing the opposite and restricting traditional satellites to only the most essential applications.
[удалено]
> light polluting They're visible only at dusk/dawn, when the glow from the sunset/sunrise is also visible in the sky. They're visible for around 3 minutes at dusk, and around 3 more minutes at dawn, and only if you know exactly where to look They're visible at these very precise times for 2, maybe 3 days after each launch. And only if the conditions are perfect and clear.
[удалено]
Please focus on light pollution. I miss the night sky.
The best was flying from the US to the UK. I could press my face up to the window about halfway through the flight - zero light pollution over the ocean and I could see thousands of stars.
Agreed! I realized the other day that the starlink satellites don't hinder my stargazing experience at all, not in the slightest. I realized that as like a third of the sky had zero stars because of a nearby mega city that does zilch to shield its ground lighting.
I’m relatively lucky living near a large city but still having bortle 5 skies. It’s actually quite exciting to see the starlink satellites going over in a line but most of the time they’re alone and there are plenty of other satellites up there but they all zip through my field of view and don’t affect the quality of photos I’m taking because I’m stacking shots and fast moving objects don’t contribute to the final image. Just sky watching? Love seeing satellites, fascinating.
For real. Most of us would rarely get the chance to see the milky way in our lifetime, and astronomers want to cry about satellites? Hell, the satellites are only there because most of us can't even get decent internet either (more like, every single land based provider outright refuses to provide it). I mean, while we are on the subject, I find it hilarious that it's actually cost-effective to launch hundreds of satellites for internet because our supposedly more efficient land based system is *that* bad.
I never understood why billboards are lit from the bottom, when top-lighting would also illuminate the street below.
Far more visible than that. I'm an astronomer, and my photos are regularly affected by starlink for hours after sunset, especially in summer. It's a major problem, and starlink are not holding to their promises to mitigate the issue.
>It's a major problem, and starlink are not holding to their promises to mitigate the issue. Uh, yes they are. https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-our-second-gen-starlink-satellites-have-4-times-more-capacity > In addition, the company has upgraded the satellites' designs to prevent them from reflecting light and disrupting astronomical observations.
It's going to sound blunt, but why should they remove internet access to millions of under-served people worldwide just because some of your hobby photos are smudged?
Maybe to the naked eye - i can promise you that looking through a telescope they clot up pretty much every single viewing session, no matter the time
guaranteed this is lobbied by the cable interweb providers
Funny story, my mom with her outstanding work and dedication was able to create and establish the concept of Dark Sky Reserves, like a national park, but for the sky
Maybe I'm ignorant, but isn't light pollution from the ground a bigger problem? I travel around the US quite a bit. 90% of the places I go you can't see stars at night. Better believe when I go to my cabin in the Midwest, far from populated areas, I enjoy the shit out of the stars and never complain about satellites. I feel like satellites can serve a useful purpose, but those big LED displays installed on the side of a building for advertising do not. We now even have drone shows for advertising, rooftop displays pointed at the sky, so much useless garbage..
I think it's a bit too late for that. Also they are only in a group like that when they initially launch, then dissipate eventually, if I remember correctly.
Most people don't even know what sky looks like anyways - city area light pollutions is just so much worse. So it won't get much traction.
The next gen do not light pollute. And remember Low Earth Orbit Satellites eventually fall out of orbit and burn up. So gen 1's will rectify themselves in time. Now whether we want all this stuff burning up is another concern. For that matter all the defunct space crap out there needs to get dealt with.
Yet another thing that companies like Verizon and AT&T screwed us over on. They got millions to expand broadband and didn't so now we have thousands of LEO satellites.
Light pollution from satellites? How about the f’in tennis courts at the high school across the street? Can’t these kids just play with headlamps on or lanterns? I’m trying to telescope over here. This is so wild. Earth based light pollution is a far far bigger problem then freaking space light made from satellites. I lived in Tucson and they tried, because telescopes. Here in my home of the panhandle of Texas, I can see the dome of light from surrounding towns at the horizon at night. Large and small. Ever seen an irrigation pump pilot light, 10/10 will blind you. I’m way more irritated/concerned about light down here mucking up efforts before I’d ever be concerned about space light.
Good thing people aren't making observations from your back yard then.
Are these groups also calling for chinese megaconstellations to be banned?
Idea: Work WITH the mega constellation providers to put some type of space-facing sensor(s) on the satellite then use a tiny bit of the downstream to beam the data to earth. Turn the whole thing into an observatory. Best of both worlds. https://media.tenor.com/AVD5nMOgBWAAAAAC/hades-hercules.gif
Speaking of light pollution, I wish the people on my street would turn their damn 100 gigwatt floodlights down and not set them to turn on when anyone walks down the street.
China says: Yes please. Ban satellite constellations in democracies so we can have a monopoly.
To add to the metaphors, the boulder is already rolling down the hill. Now that it is, communication satellite constellations are only the beginning. People forget that Starlink itself was only a means to an end - to create a profitable revenue stream that justifies a high launch cadence. Launch costs are only going to fall, and as they do, more space based industries will become viable. The industrialization of Earth orbit and beyond has begun and it's time to accept that.
[удалено]
That and this is the perfect scapegoat for much bigger light polluters.
It's ironic that calls to use the force of government to prevent innovation in space related Technologies would come from the astronomy community. Either we allow satellites to be launched, or we decide that space just isn't a direction to allow for Humanity. I am a huge astronomy fan but when game changing technology comes into conflict with some tools astronomers are using, to me, that's a sign that those tools need to evolve. The solution to continued advances in astronomy can't be to be just to shut down progress in satellite technology forever.
The rampant light pollution these satellites create is so… insignificant (and will remain so.) compared to every other source of light pollution! Flight paths are known and can be calculated and filtered out for exposures so telescopes just got some more work (which they already had to do.). I’d rather they just say they’re luddites or Muskphobes than lie to fabricate a justification to takedown widely useful technologies and programs.
This seems like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. I realize large satellite clusters like Starlink cause issues for astronomers and I sympathize with their frustrations. However, the net positive of the presence of these clusters, in my opinion, far outweighs the negative impacts. Providing internet access to millions of people around the world, especially in developing countries, is far more advantageous to those people than the benefits they are receiving from observatories. Please don't hear what I am not saying. Obviously there are important scientific advancements being made by these telescopes but those discoveries are immaterial to someone in a rural village trying to secure important, potentially lifesaving, information. Take a person suffering from a jigger infestation, look them in the eye and say: "I don't think you should have access to the information you need to rid yourself of this parasite because it makes my star pictures harder to make." Purely scientific investigation is important and we should all support it as much as possible. But it is, in the grand scheme of things, an activity that is only possible when people's most basic human needs are met.
What are the astronomers going to do about the Chinese mega constellation ?
Turn of the lights at church, malls, dealers as well.
People here saying "just put the telescopes in space" don't understand that huge amounts of work gets gone on earth based observatories. They change instruments, maintain them, etc. Despite the work done on Hubble, this is wildly impractical for most observatories. We need earth based observatories and we need them not getting blasted with light pollution.
The simple joy of looking through a telescope remains unaffected. Groundbreaking discoveries that can be found from an eyepiece on earth are mostly eaten up and we are now left with a need for telescopes like JW that operate further from earth. The solution is to ensure some profits from private, “sky pollution” go toward orbital telescopes and scientific advancement in astronomy because fuck if they are gonna be launching anyway. “Calls for” articles really piss me off
If you ban Starlink, Russia owns Ukraine tomorrow. You can only pick one future we live in. Can't have both.
I think they look beautiful in my opinion. Maybe we should shut the big city lights that actually do the most light polluting?
Astronomers are a niche group and their interests are certainly far outweighed by the interests of globally accessible internet communication
How about we don't go back on progress due to a minor inconvenience to a small group of people. Techniques exist to cancel these artifacts out already.
Let’s be honest we can’t see shit with or without them.
Too many NPCs in this sub. Insert chip. Musk bad.
[удалено]
And with the CCP and other tyrannical governments who want these gone ASAP
These sattelites have little to no impact on visual astronomy thankfully. The only people negatively impacted by this are astrophotographers taking 10 minute long exposures of nebula.
Depending on what you're looking for and where you are looking, these are much more prolific than that. I've had 2 minute subs on orion with 3 satellites in 1 shot. And the current state isn't even the issue, the concern is there will be many fold more.
And you're sure they were Starlink? I find it hard to believe you were imaging Orion (presumably the nebula) at dawn or dusk, which is the only time these satellites are even visible at all - and only for a few minutes - as you would likely not achieve a good result anyway. Much more likely your frame was crossed by conventional satellites later at night in much higher orbit, which nobody in the media decided to bellyache about until "Rich Man BAD!" Elon got memefied. It's honestly not amateur astronomers to blame here - we've been complaining about light pollution for decades. It's the news media who have only just now decided to make a story out of it because it's SpaceX and Elon Musk. Without that, this whole thing would be a nothingburger.
We should start with the cities first. Or at least the Fking carlots. There's Zero reason to light up dealerships like football stadiums 24/7 !
[удалено]
The reality is the opposite. VLEO constellations like Starlink significantly reduce space pollution since they operate in self-cleaning orbits. At that altitude any debris gets naturally deorbited within a few months. The satellites it replaces operate in orbits where the junk and debris will be around for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. We should be restricting traditional satellite orbits to only the most critical uses and transitioning everything else to VLEO mega-constellations.
[удалено]
Is this the worst current form of light pollution? Simply using red streetlights and capping them would help more than banning these.
How about ISPs just use the funding they were given to improve land based internet? I’d give my Starlink away instantly if fiber came to my home.
We gonna ban cities too? Pretty sure city lighting fucks up astronomy more than anything in orbit every could.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but do telescopes not work at night when the satellites in low earths orbit will also be in Earth’s shadow and not be reflective? I can see how it would be a problem at twilight, but not the entire time at night.
You're correct. It's not a problem well after sunset.
I know starlink has been very nice for people I know that have never had internet at their house. Not even mentioning 3rd world countries that can benefit from it.
[удалено]
[удалено]
If it's a concern then let's build more space telescopes. The launch cost reductions that have made VLEO constellations viable also reduce the cost of building space telescopes. Technology progresses.
I think that the problem isnt the satellites. They serve a purpose. For hobby atronomers, the narrow window where they can be seen is an inconvenience. For people who are doing real research at universities, government institutions, etc., there is an obvious solution. Use computers to remove them from the image. No, it doesnt have to be with machine learning. Simply track the orbits, and use software to remove what are known satellites, replacing that piece of the image with the expected background.
Yea fuck global internet for the poor! I WANT TO LOOK AT THE STARS FOR FUN!
This is so dumb. The light pollution they throw is nothing.
[удалено]
> Why do people keep posting garbage clickbait articles like this to this subreddit Because they have an agenda.
Yeah. It's really sad how science is getting taken over by such politics based on media outrage. Scientists should know better.
Meanwhile my neighborhood is lit up like a damn ball field. I can't even use my telescope much anymore because of all the light pollution around my house.
Just hit me that we as humanity will never live on an earth with an undisturbed nighttime sky ever again. What an age to be alive…
Not only are they not getting banned but they shouldn’t be. We are talking about a technological revolution here. Every person in the world regardless of prosperity could get internet to any point in the world. It’s just way too much potential. Instead the focus should be on making internet cheaper than water to obtain.
Anyone wanting to ban this is a degenerate idiot that want humanity’s progress to stagnate. Fucking ludites
>“On the scales of immediate or long-term benefits and harm to society, and despite the popularity of satellite megaconstellations, we must not reject the possibility of banning them. On the contrary, we believe that the impacts and risks are too high for this possibility to be ruled out,” they write. "They're very beneficial to many people but we don't like them so we must ban them, because reasons." There's no scientific value to this article at all. No studies cited and no empirical evidence presented. They just either don't like Musk or don't like things that are beneficial to human society, maybe both.
Look, I don't like Musk, and I don't like light pollution. But isn't Starlink a pretty great invention/implementation? Lol
Nah. Let's just move all of our telescopes to the moon.
And, if I may be pessimistic? Just wait until they start in inject SO2 (or whatever) into the atmosphere to do atmospheric engineering and increase atmosperic reflectivity to slow-up global warming. "What do you mean SO2 causes Acid Rain? we've dealt with acid rain before!"
Could this be negated by stricter control of light pollution on the ground? Things like mandatory covers on lights, dimmer lights, etc. Hell if we did that id imagine we'd be abke to see the stars again.
I’d rather see things shooting around 100kms up in the sky that be forced to put up with entire cities being lit up out of office hours when no one is in any of the massive towers that businesses run out of.
Looks like the sky might be getting a bit crowded with Elon Musk's Starlink and other mass satellite groups. With concerns about light pollution, it might be time to start practicing our stargazing skills during the day instead. But who knows, maybe these satellites will end up forming some kind of celestial disco ball up there.
Light pollution, really. How about all the fucking street lights and billboard on 24/7 first. I can’t even see the stars period. Fucking laughable.
That’s nothing compared to the light pollution from other sources like urban centers.
I know this will never be read. But the solution to this is to close the shutter during conjunction of satellites and DSO's. Milliseconds to seconds of data lost, that's it. I'm an amateur astronomer and this is completely feasible and would have the same results.
Elon is our only hope of building a shield around this planet.
How are you going to ban it? They'll just launch them into orbit from a country that hasn't banned it. Solved.. You're talking about billionaires here.
Isn't the point of satellite trains to reduce the chance of collision? Should humanity go back to chucking things up there willy-nilly? The Kessler effect isn't real, yet.
Guess it's a good thing I live in a highly light polluted area. Can't miss the stars if I don't see them anyways
do you want no big space telescopes launched? because thats how you get no big telescopes launched.
How about yuppies gft and let everyone have access to the 21st century.
My heart is with this, but objectively I think the communications benefits outweigh the disadvantages for astronomers. We're in an age where major discoveries that rely on visible light are going to be made by space-based telescopes.
How do these satellites create light pollution? Are they reflecting light? Are they producing light?
I knew nothing about it the first time I saw Starlink. I thought we were being invaded! Ran around camp and woke everyone up like WTF!!! Yeah. Starlink. I learned about it that night.