SpaceX satellites could blight the night sky, warn astronomers(theguardian.com) |
SpaceX satellites could blight the night sky, warn astronomers(theguardian.com) |
There was a similar situation when a Russian private company sent up a satellite that would deploy reflectors to purposefully make it one of the brightest objects in the night sky[1]. I image some astronomers breathed a sigh of relief when the reflectors didn't properly deploy.
In radio astronomy, there are a few small protected bands to keep some portions of the spectrum quiet for scientific purposes. There is no such "spectrum allocation" for optical astronomy. Like chopping down the rain forest or putting plastic in the ocean, we may improve our quality of life through external costs. Governmental regulation permits us to partially control for these externalities. Perhaps if we find ourselves in a big mess like with CFC's and destroying the ozone layer, we will have a public call-to-action to create regulations.
So, what's the rub? Ground based telescopes are vastly cheaper than space-based alternatives for optical and radio astronomy. The difference in cost is often more than two orders of magnitude. If ground based telescopes become less efficient or less productive, there will simply be fewer scientific discoveries made within a flat budget. If the public is required to increase the budgets of NASA, NSF, ESO, and ESA to maintain their desired level of scientific output, then that in itself is an external cost that SpaceX and other companies are passing on.
Has SpaceX said anything about the paths they will follow? Can they change mid-deployment?
You can see the general pattern in a really cool webgl animation on the main site: https://www.starlink.com/
And yet I, probably like everyone else who isn’t an astronomy enthusiast, haven’t ever looked at a light in the sky and known it was a satellite. They’re subtle, not dominating the night sky by any means, at least insofar as an untrained modern human can tell. Starlink would up the number of satellites by ~2x, perhaps, but would that be enough to change the basic equation?
Perhaps, but that's irrelevant to this discussion which was initiated by competent experts in their field. Not like protests against 5G which are based on dodgy YouTube videos.
Starlink will have a significant impact on the global night sky based solely on the approval of one agency of one country of 8% of the World's population. Even if you as a layman don't perceive it to be a problem in your daily life, doesn't that just seem... wrong? If North Korea had taken such a step there would be sanctions.
It’d be nice to have Internet way out there. But at the cost of my (and everyone else’s) pure night sky?
I'm personally so excited to see these, I think it will be a breathtaking, tangible emblem of one of the first planet-scale systems that humans have built.
Oh no, 15 tiny lights in the sky. Not really a blight.
I care about light pollution a lot and think most people are missing what I had when I grew up (Canadian/American border in the 90's). I wish cities had strict codes and <1% of the waste light they do now.
But dark skies are not dark at all - there are about 10000 visible stars. A few moving dots is not going to ruin the experience.
I'd rather see some regulations against all the lights in the Walmart/shopping mall/grocery store parking lots which have completely ruined the night sky in my area.
It's also a global problem.
Regardless, we should be moving our telescopes to space. Much less interference of all kinds.
I watched a recent pass of the Starlink satellites, and now that they're oriented near their operational directions, I could barely see them. I only noticed them because I knew right where to look. Unlike the flashing lights of passing aircraft which were a lot more distracting.
I'm perfectly happy to permanently screw over ground-based astronomy if that's what it take to get us into space.
Just build the damn telescopes in space. And stop thinking single-mirror scopes like Hubble — you could build huge multiple-segment mirrors in space — much bigger than anything on earth.
Something that could have immense impact on astronomy, the interest of the population in the cosmos, and a permanent change to the night sky shouldn't have some consensus, at least morally?
>It should be contingent on approval from a regulatory body that is appointed/controlled in some democratic way and reflects the will of the population,
Do those exist, much less in the current US administration?
>and if the benefits to society outweigh the risks, then it should get the go ahead regardless of consensus by astronomers.
...unless there is a way to accomplish the same thing for 99% of the population that is better implemented or doesn't affect the sky.
Additionally, this seems to me like an overall positive effect for the public at large. Being able to see satellites zooming across the sky is pretty cool, provides educational opportunities beyond what normal stargazing offers, and reminds people that there's something to aspire to (and look forward to) beyond what's on the ground.
It will have 144 times the light-collecting area of Hubble. Nice graphic comparing the new generation of extremely large telescopes here: [1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Meter_Telescope
[1] https://en.es-static.us/upl/2018/04/comparison-telescope-mir...
The NSF budget for astronomy is $250M/year.
Revenue projections for Starlink reach as high as $50B/year.
It doesn't capture the value of individuals looking up and seeing stars. But I suspect the continued migration to highly illuminated cities shows that value isn't very high either.
You also can't slew a telescope in space like you can on ground, it would be extremely cost prohibitive in terms of fuel.
"moving telescopes to space" is the equivalent of "let them eat cake" comment in this funding environment. It sounds like a wonderful proposition until you realize how many observatories we have on the ground and their utilization and how expensive it would be to replicate half that utilization. It's already not easy getting time on a telescope, if everybody had to be crammed on 15 space observatories costing $1B/each, there would be no observational time for grad students or post docs let alone funding for research. You also kill follow up observations on temporal events.
Of course, maybe the government could reach an agreement with SpaceX to send up the observatories for free and send some money the way of the astronomers for seriously messing up the sky, but there's no reason to expect SpaceX to be a good citizen of the night sky.
Seems like they are willing to do more than most:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1132908915144794113
SpaceX satellites are much closer and they are planning something around 7,500 of them.
Might not be too hard to look in just the right place with that many floating around.
ISS is also sometimes reported as a UFO. It's often brighter than Venus.
On a really dark sky near astronautical twilight, you can already usually see a few satellites in orbit, and some are far brighter.
We're becoming a spacefaring species. That's exciting, and part of it means we'll be able to see more satellites.
It's worth noting that the original tweets grossly exaggerated this problem. I think it's worth trying to minimize albedo of the satellites, but this was a completely predictable result that was obvious from the first minute anyone discussed a large LEO constellation (seeing as we already have satellites). I don't know why it took so long for the astronomy community to actually bring it up. Perhaps because the initially deployed satellites flared a lot in their pre-operational condition, but I'm a little disappointed in how fast a lot of mistruths of this situation traveled around the internet.
Personally, I'd find this a nuisance, not a source of excitement. I find it unfortunate that, when trying to enjoy nature, we are so completely unable to escape evidence of human habitation and technology.
As far as being able to detect evidence of human habitation and technology, that has been the case since the beginning of the Space Age. Choosing to find it a nuisance is, of course, a personal choice, not really something anyone can argue with you about.
