Soon, one out of every 15 points of light in the sky will be a satellite

II’m outside at my rural Saskatchewan farm, chatting with my neighbors who I’ve invited to appreciate the night sky through their telescopes. After exclamations and open-mouthed wonder at the rings of Saturn, and the light that has been traveling through space for more than two million years, from the Andromeda Galaxy to reach our eyes, our conversations inevitably pandemic, our work-at-home. My neighbor casually mentions that he has started using Starlink for his internet provider.

I look up and see a bright satellite moving across the sky, almost certainly a Starlink, as they are now almost made About half of the 4,000 operational satellites And they are extremely bright. I take a deep breath and consider carefully how to discuss the substantial cost we will all be paying for Starlink Internet.

I don’t blame my neighbors for making the switch. not here, as in many rural parts of North America great internet options, and with many people working and taking classes from home during the pandemic, anything that makes life easier is immediately accepted.

But I know how high this cost can be. my paper is coming astronomical journal, Is Predictions for what the night sky will look like if satellite companies follow through with their current plans, I also know that 50 degrees north, where I live, will be the most severely affected part of the world, due to the geometry of the sunlight and the orbits chosen.

Without any rules, I know that in the near future, one out of every 15 marks You can see that in the sky there will actually be satellites, not stars, crawling tirelessly. This would be disastrous for research on astronomy, and would completely change the night sky around the world.

the future is too bright

To find out how badly the night sky is going to be affected by sunlight reflected from planned satellite mega-constellations, we built a Open-source computer model to predict satellite brightness As seen from different places on Earth, at different times of the night, in different seasons. We have also created a simple Web app based on this simulation,

Our model uses 65,000 satellites in orbits filed by four megaconstellation companies: SpaceX Starlink and Amazon Kuiper (United States), OneWeb (United Kingdom) and Starnet/GW (China). We calibrated our simulations to match Telescopic measurements of Starlink satellites, because they are by far the largest number.

Starlink has made some progress toward downsizing its satellites since its first launch, but most are still visible to the naked eye,

Our simulations show that from everywhere in the world, in every season, dozens to hundreds of satellites will be visible before sunrise and for at least an hour after sunset. Right now, it’s relatively easy to avoid urban light pollution thanks to dark skies when camping or in your cabin, but our simulations show you can’t avoid this new satellite light pollution anywhere on Earth, even at the North Pole.

Near cities like London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Kiev, Vancouver, Calgary and my own home, the most severely affected places on Earth will be 50 degrees north and south. At the summer solstice, from these latitudes, about 200 satellites will be visible to the naked eye overnight.

I study the orbital dynamics of the Kuiper Belt, A Belt of Small Objects Beyond Neptune, My research relies on long exposure, wide field imaging Find and track these tiny bodies To learn about the history of our solar system.

Important telescope observations to learn about our universe are about to be received very, very hard Due to the irregular development of space.

Astronomers are making some Mitigation Strategies, but they will require time and effort which must be paid for by the megaconstellation companies.

read also, This quasi-satellite of Earth may actually be a piece of the Moon, astronomers say

unknown environmental costs

Starlink Internet may seem cheaper than other rural options, but that’s because Many costs are waived, have an immediate cost atmospheric pollution From the hundreds of rocket launches needed to build and maintain this system.

Each satellite deployment throws rocket bodies and other debris into already congested low-Earth orbit, increasing collision risk, Some of this space junk will eventually return to Earth, and those parts of the world will also have the highest overhead satellite densities. most likely to be affected literally,

Starlink plans to replace each of the 42,000 satellites after five years of operation, which would require orbiting an average of 25 satellites per day, about six tons of material. The mass of these satellites will not go – it will deposited in the upper atmosphere, Since satellites consist mostly of aluminum alloys, they can form alumina particles as they vaporize in the upper atmosphere, potentially destroying ozone and causing global temperature changes.

It has not yet been studied in depth because low Earth orbit is not currently subject to any environmental regulations.