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“Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky
11–20 of 334 posts
Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky
#12Should it be possible to coordinate orbits to create permanent clear spots on the sky where observatories are? A LEO no flight zone of sorts.
Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky
#13These kinds of caps have for years been a dampener on human flourishing. My observation has been that those in stagnation or decline tend to attach themselves to these desires to hold the status quo. Anti-energy, anti-housing, anti-industry and so on because they've reached a local maxima in their ability to live and have chosen to spend their life in leisure.
But there is the rest of the world, and if I'm told that the Africans should not have access to high-speed satellite Internet[0] so that the Europeans can use one specific method of looking at the stars, I don't find that convincing. In time, as we expand, space-based observation will become fairly feasible for everyone. And the satellites we have will decay to the Earth should we fail to keep them up there.
We will build Earth orbital structures and swarms, and we will build Sun orbital structures and swarms, and we will go to the stars, and it will be better for humanity as a whole.
0: https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2026/07/02/...
Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky
#14I am a science and astronomy fan, but I am sorry, in this case progress is more important. If we regret our decision, the LEOs will fall out of the sky by themselves in a few years and it will be ok.
A few years is a large knowledge gap if an asteroid is on its way to us.
Not to mention that’s not how it works. We regret burning so much fossil fuel but those who make huge profits from it prevent as much change as they can.
You can bet Amazon and SpaceX will do the same no matter how the rest of us regrets it
Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky
#15If we can launch 1M satellites, how many telescopes can we launch?
Who is we?
Certainly not amateur astronomers who made important discoveries with their telescopes
Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky
#16ah and guess what. only western US / European countries are allowed to have them. The rest are called shadow fleet satellites.
Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky
#17I am a science and astronomy fan, but I am sorry, in this case progress is more important. If we regret our decision, the LEOs will fall out of the sky by themselves in a few years and it will be ok.
Some scientific endeavors can be paused and maybe later relaunched, if funding has not dried up and temporarily-worthless machinery has not been left to rot.
But stuff like mitigating the constant threat of big enough objects showing up on a collision course with earth should not be paused until those eye-catchers fall out of the sky. If there is something coming at us that can wipe out more than the stock price of one particularly space-enthusiastic company, we should like to know within a time period appropriate for our current planetary defense capabilities. Which will surely improve, over time - so maybe we can pollute the sky, later.
Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky
#18Title is: One million satellites and mirrors in space pose grave threat to the night sky
Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky
#19Why are they bright? Do they have big lights flashing or is it reflection
And what are they reflecting when they are in Earth's shadow?
They aren’t in the Earth’s shadow at the start of the night
> For the SpaceX satellite mega-constellation, he found that dozens of trails would appear in each image taken two hours into the night with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal Observatory in Chile
Not to mention the satellites of Reflect Orbital whose sole purpose is reflecting sun light into night areas
Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky
#20This is a tradeoff we have to make with infrastructure and development in general. How do you balance human needs with pristine nature? Do we put up long-distance power lines and wind farms even though they ruin the views? Do you tear down a forest to put up farmlands and suburbs? Do you build a dam to provide water for irrigation, even though it kills the fish and floods a valley? Satellites are actually easier than…
They hinder the view on asteroids coming our way.
The purpose of most of these satellites is internet access where we already have less limited possibilities with less maintenance costs like constant replacement