The aerospace company SpaceX launched 60 of its Starlink broadband Internet satellites into orbit on 6 January — including one, called DarkSat, that is partially painted black. The probe is testing one strategy to reduce the brightness of satellite ‘megaconstellations’, which scientists fear could interfere with astronomical observations.
Various companies plan to launch thousands of Internet satellites in the coming years; SpaceX, of Hawthorne, California, aims to launch 24 batches of Starlinks this year. By the mid-2020s, thousands to tens of thousands of new satellites could be soaring overhead. Bright streaks caused by light reflecting off them could degrade astronomical images.
“I was complaining to my wife that I can’t sleep very well these days because of this,” says Tony Tyson, a physicist at the University of California, Davis, and chief scientist of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a major US telescope under construction in Chile. (It was renamed this week from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope to honour the late Rubin, who discovered evidence for the existence of dark matter.)
Astronomers discussed the potential impacts of the satellites on various telescopes, and what could be done about them, on 8 January at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawaii. “2020 is the window to figure out what makes a difference in reducing the impact,” says Jeffrey Hall, director of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and chair of the society’s committee on light pollution.
“SpaceX is absolutely committed to finding a way forward so our Starlink project doesn’t impede the value of the research you all are undertaking,” Patricia Cooper, SpaceX’s vice-president for satellite government affairs, told a session at the astronomy meeting.
Good idea. I wonder if there are already other things up there that are reflection proofed? To read more, click here.