Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Unexpected solar weather is accelerating satellites' orbital decay

space.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 106 posts

Re: Unexpected solar weather is accelerating satellites' orbital decay

#61

Post by dang »

not2b wrote: post #13

Too many HN threads just seem to be people arguing about the appropriateness of the title. The article addresses a significant and interesting issue that's going to have major negative effects on business models, as well as some positive effect on space junk. I think they did a decent job, at least for an article intended for the general public, and I'm glad I read it. And yes, the word "plummet" is an exaggeration.…

Never underestimate the passion users feel about titles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20429573

Re: Unexpected solar weather is accelerating satellites' orbital decay

#63

Post by dang »

jandrese wrote: post #38
not2b wrote: post #13

Too many HN threads just seem to be people arguing about the appropriateness of the title. The article addresses a significant and interesting issue that's going to have major negative effects on business models, as well as some positive effect on space junk. I think they did a decent job, at least for an article intended for the general public, and I'm glad I read it. And yes, the word "plummet" is an exaggeration.…

Writing a good title is as hard as naming things in code. It's a much harder problem than it seems like it should be, with mutually exclusive interests often creating impossible situations. But also, people just kind of suck at it.

With media publications, at least, it's more that they have specialists dedicated to slathering bait on the titles. That's their job and they're perfectly good at it—they just don't produce what people here would call a good title. This is an example of what Eric Evans called a "bounded context". The way I look at it, it's their job to sex up the headlines and our job (community as well as moderators!) to deflate them again. "Not in this context."

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

(I suppose this is what you meant by "mutually exclusive interests".)

Re: Unexpected solar weather is accelerating satellites' orbital decay

#64

Post by corrral »

not2b wrote: post #13

Too many HN threads just seem to be people arguing about the appropriateness of the title. The article addresses a significant and interesting issue that's going to have major negative effects on business models, as well as some positive effect on space junk. I think they did a decent job, at least for an article intended for the general public, and I'm glad I read it. And yes, the word "plummet" is an exaggeration.…

> Too many HN threads just seem to be people arguing about the appropriateness of the title

Too many writers—including of headlines—are so sloppy with language that it's misleading, or even incorrect.

Perhaps when GPT-4 or whatever takes over those jobs, it will be better at it. Provided we don't train it on anything written after 2000 or so, when all headlines became tabloid headlines and margins got tight enough that no-one had time for careful editing anymore.

Re: Unexpected solar weather is accelerating satellites' orbital decay

#65

Post by [deleted] »

not2b wrote: post #13

Too many HN threads just seem to be people arguing about the appropriateness of the title. The article addresses a significant and interesting issue that's going to have major negative effects on business models, as well as some positive effect on space junk. I think they did a decent job, at least for an article intended for the general public, and I'm glad I read it. And yes, the word "plummet" is an exaggeration.…

[deleted]

Re: Unexpected solar weather is accelerating satellites' orbital decay

#66

Post by GekkePrutser »

colechristensen wrote: post #39
jaywalk wrote: post #2

Is the word "plummet" really appropriate here? They're talking about falling at a rate of 0.001mph, which is much faster than expected but hardly a "plummet."

Yes, orbit decay having gone up by a factor of ~10 is indeed plummeting. You park things in low earth orbit so that they don't stay up forever and indeed come down in reasonably small human-scale timeframes. Usually on the time scale of decades, sometimes more, sometimes less. If you designed a satellite to stay up for 10 years, it'll suddenly only be able to stay up a year, that's the scale of these things. Again it…

But this space 'weather' won't last forever right? Won't it go back to the old decay rate after this?

So if it lasts a week, the lifetime will be reduced by 10 weeks? Still a lot but something you can cope with.

Re: Unexpected solar weather is accelerating satellites' orbital decay

#67

Post by BitwiseFool »

colechristensen wrote: post #52
BitwiseFool wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why it is a dumb objection. Word choice is important, especially for journalists trying to convey information to the general public and even more so when it comes to headlines - as the majority of people won't read the article to understand the nuance. I genuinely think a decent number of people are going to envision a situation where satellites suddenly plunging out of orbit like they would in some big b…

It’s dumb because it is based on the objector imagining what an uninformed reader would imagine and thinking that anything unlike mighty Thor smiting satellites out of the sky with lightning bolts would make the word “plummet” inappropriate. Satellites are falling relatively very fast compared to usual and some of them have or soon will burn up in atmosphere as a result, it’s a headline, not a half sentence expected…

Likewise, why would you imagine that an uninformed reader would see the word "plummet" and understand that none of these satellites are in immediate danger of re-entry, that they will in-fact continue to stay aloft for several more months, and that in this context plummet means an orbit decaying an order of magnitude faster than expected?

You are correct, one of the meanings of plummet is a rapid descent. These satellites are rapidly descending. You are correct.

Again, though, word choice matters. Can you see where other commenters and I are coming from?

Re: Unexpected solar weather is accelerating satellites' orbital decay

#68

Post by mc32 »

furyofantares wrote: post #56
mc32 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, plummet is like straight down till it hits something. Given it's root is in "plumbum" it's not surprising and yes, this is used incorrectly. Not being prescriptive, but this usage is pretty misleading.

That's what's happening, right? It's just that space is curved by the earth

A meteor/meteorite plunges to earth. Something that lowers its altitude so very slightly is not “plummet”. Skylab yes plummeted back to earth.

Re: Unexpected solar weather is accelerating satellites' orbital decay

#69

Post by cperciva »

dang wrote: post #60
jaywalk wrote: post #2

Is the word "plummet" really appropriate here? They're talking about falling at a rate of 0.001mph, which is much faster than expected but hardly a "plummet."

Alright you guys, they are no longer plummeting in the title above. Let's talk about the interesting bits now!

I would have said "... is accelerating satellites' orbital decay".

Re: Unexpected solar weather is accelerating satellites' orbital decay

#70

Post by FunnyBadger »

This is simply part of the solar cycle. And it's a standard part of satellite planning when it comes to operational quality and reliability to account for solar cycle radiation effects.

This is an ignorant fear article and/or an article written by someone who knows NOTHING about space launch and design.

(I used to be a military rocket scientist specializing in radiation effects on space electronics many moons ago).

Post reply on HN