It has become an obsession with astronomers, both professional and amateur. The increase in low-orbit satellites, boosted by the deployment of mega-constellations like SpaceX’s Starlink or others, is causing astronomers more and more annoyance.
In a study published this week in the journal Astronomy of natureA team of scientists led by astrophysicist Sandor Kruk of the Max Planck Institute is alarmed at the negative implications of the presence of these unwanted nighttime visitors in Hubble Space Telescope observations.
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To understand, as the Universe Today website explains, the Hubble telescope uses an exposure time of 11 minutes on average to photograph the limits of the universe. When it comes to composite images, that is, a stack of photographs, exposure times can be up to 35 minutes, and in the most extreme cases, even days. One of NASA’s most famous space observatory images, known as the “Hubble Extreme Deep Field” (in English “Hubble Extreme Deep Field”), required, for example, more than 22 days of observation.
By digging through the archives, a team of astronomers was able to accurately assess the impact of the footprints left by these steel-winged birds on NASA’s telescope observations. So, if in the period from 2009 to 2020 the probability of seeing a satellite in the Hubble image was 3.7%, then a year later, in 2021, this percentage reaches 5.9%. “With an increase in the number of artificial satellites currently planned, the proportion of Hubble Space Telescope images taken by satellites will increase over the next decade.”a team of astronomers warns, quoted by Universe Today.
At least 2,469 satellites were launched into low Earth orbit in 2022 alone, a 36% increase over the previous year. And this is just the beginning: in this way, before the end of the next decade, 420,000 satellites can be launched, and The newspaper “New York Times, American researcher Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. In recent years, there have been many projects aimed at providing high-speed Internet access via satellite, from SpaceX (Starlink) to Amazon (Kuiper), through the British OneWeb or China’s Starnet/GW.
SpaceX is working on a solution
In an article published in 2021 on the website Talkastronomer Samantha Lawler of the University of Regina in Canada was alarmed by the appearance of these megaconstellations. “Soon one of the fifteen points of light in the night sky will be a satellite… This will have a devastating effect on astronomical research and will completely change the night sky around the world.”and not just for professional astronomers, the researcher stressed, referring to a figure of 65,000 satellites in low Earth orbit by the end of the decade.
Elon Musk’s company, whose Starlink network has more than 3,000 satellites, is working on a solution to the problem. SpaceX announced last week that its second-generation satellites now use low-reflectivity black paint, as well as dielectric mirror films that reflect sunlight from Earth, Spaceflight Now reports. “While our V2 Mini satellites are larger than previous versions, we expect them to be just as dark, if not darker.”Elon Musk explained. A cosmetic solution, but still far from convincing astronomers…
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