Samantha Lawler lives in the small village of Edenwold, Sask. It’s “a place that’s so dark that I can walk out my back door and see the Milky Way,” she said.
But that deep darkness won’t last, as companies like SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper proceed with plans to launch tens of thousands of satellites into orbit, forming “mega-constellations” of satellites.
She knows exactly what that could look like, because she’s been working on simulations of satellites in the night sky.
“Every night I can see probably a few satellites in a few-minute period. And I know that’s going to increase a lot,” Lawler, an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Regina, told As It Happens host Carol Off.
Her model relies on the planned or actual orbits of 65,000 satellites from four major companies: Starlink, Project Kuiper, OneWeb and StarNet/GW. The majority of these satellites have not yet been launched, but there are already nearly 4,000 operational satellites in orbit, Lawler noted.
“According to our simulations, which take into account the brightness of satellites reflecting sunlight and the orbits that these companies want to use, I predict that there will be a couple of hundred satellites visible at any time during the summer in my night sky and within a couple hours of sunrise and sunset all year long,” she said.
The companies filed plans with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the International Telecommunications Union that detail the angles of the orbits and how many satellites would be on each orbit. As a result, Lawler and her colleagues are able to predict where the satellites will be in the sky as viewed from different locations on Earth at different times of year, and estimate how much light they’ll reflect.
They relied on observations of existing Skylink satellites at the Plaskett Telescope in Victoria, B.C. to help calibrate their model.
Samantha Lawler says that people living close to 50 degrees north will be most affected by plans to launch tens of thousands of satellites into space in the next few years. (Campion College, University of Regina/Submitted by Samantha Lawler )
“We really wanted to make sure that our model is applicable to Canada. We want to know what’s going to happen to our skies,” she said.
According to her research, people living along 50 degrees of latitude north and south will be most affected by visible satellites and other night sky light pollution. The north latitude line runs across some Canadian cities including Vancouver, Winnipeg and Calgary.
If 65,000 satellites are launched into space and the industry isn’t regulated, the could drown out the light from actual stars, of which we can usually only see a few thousand with the naked eye, she said.
“If you have a couple hundred satellites [visible] at all times, that means that one out of every 15 points in the sky will actually be moving. It’ll be very disorienting,” said Lawler.
Making satellites fainter
So many moving visible satellites pose enormous challenges for research, to say nothing of the amount of pollution they’ll cause, said Lawler.
Some of them “will completely die in orbit and then they’ll just become space junk,” while others will burn up in the upper atmosphere, she explained. She noted that they’re mostly made of aluminum, and that we have no information on what such a large increase of burning aluminum will do the upper atmosphere.
WATCH | What a future with a sky full of satellite mega-constellations could look like
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Lawler said that instead of launching their own satellites to support their respective internet services, companies should be forced to share infrastructure, whether by government action or other forms of regulation. Failing that, they could at least be forced to ensure their devices don’t reflect so much light.
“There are fantastic engineers who work for all of these companies, but right now they have absolutely no incentive to make their satellites fainter, so they’re not doing it,” said Lawler. “Starlink, to their credit, has tried. They put a tiny bit of effort into making their satellites a little bit fainter, but they’re still very much naked-eye visible.”
Lawler says that governments must push forward legislation at a federal level, but she also notes that consumers do have some power.
“If you have another option for good internet, don’t buy satellite internet. If … satellite internet is the only the only option that you have, tell your company, tell your provider that you care about the night sky, that it’s important to you that they put effort into engineering their satellites to be fainter,” she said.
She also notes that putting pressure on local governments can be effective too.
“A lot of the lack of internet infrastructure in rural places is from many years of neglect by local governments, by provincial governments. If we pressure our governments into investing more in alternate forms of … internet [access], then there wouldn’t be so much demand for this.”
Written by Andrea Bellemare. Interview produced by Chloe Shantz-Hilkes.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
