In 2020, SpaceX plans to launch 60 Starlink satellites every two weeks, ostensibly to create a functional global internet service by the end of the year.
Customers would connect to Starlink using what Musk described on Tuesday as a device that looks like a „UFO on a stick“ and only needs to be plugged in and pointed skyward.
Computer scientist Mark Handley previously calculated that Starlink can beat fiber-optic cables, in terms of round trip travel time for user data. However, that was before SpaceX said a key satellite-to-satellite laser technology wouldn’t be ready to launch until the end of 2020.
But Handley thinks SpaceX will use the „UFO“ terminals as ground stations – a scheme that could be nearly as fast as laser links, and even faster than lasers alone when used in combination.
This suggests Starlink subscribers could become critical parts of a global, high-speed, and resilient mesh network instead of just end users.
SpaceX is racing to launch about 1,400 satellites this year and boot up Starlink, a planet-wide, ultra-high-speed internet service. The rocket company, founded by Elon Musk, may ultimately send up 12,000 or even 42,000 in the coming decade.
To that end, SpaceX on Monday launched a pallet of 60 freshly redesigned Starlink satellites on Monday – adding to 120 experimental spacecraft already in orbit – and plans to pull off similar launches every two weeks.
With anticipation building over Starlink’s debut, company founder Elon Musk explained how future subscribers will connect to the service using a device called a phased-array antenna, which he said in 2015 should cost around $200 each. (Though some industry analysts say such devices today cost about 10 times as much.)
„Looks like a thin, flat, round UFO on a stick. Starlink Terminal has motors to self-adjust optimal angle to view sky,“ Musk tweeted, adding that all a user has to do is plug it in and point it upward. „These instructions work in either order. No training required.“
What Musk did not say is how, exactly, early adopters will actually send and receive data – whether it’s information about financial markets halfway around the world, or streaming video of „The Bachelor“ on a Hulu server farm – using satellites moving around Earth at 17,000 mph, and in a dizzying variety of paths called orbital planes.
But Mark Handley, a computer science professor at University College London, posted a YouTube video on December 20 that models the Starlink network and makes some educated guesses. Handley said he used recent documents from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and statements from both Musk and Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and COO, to arrive at his conclusions.
If Handley’s latest guesswork is correct, each of Musk’s „UFO on a stick“ terminals that users pay to handle their own data could be a secret weapon that helps Starlink get data for countless other subscribers to and from its destination – and do so at speeds that handily beat fiber-optic cables. (SpaceX did not respond to Business Insider’s queries on the matter.)
„This is the most exciting new network we’ve seen in a long time,“ he previously told Business Insider. He added that the project could affect the lives of „potentially everybody.“
Here’s how Handley thinks Starlink might work this year and going forward.
Musk has said grabbing just 1-3% of the global telecommunications market through Starlink could pocket SpaceX tens of billions per year in revenue — much more than it may ever make launching rockets.
dSpaceX can launch 60 roughly desk-size, 500-pound satellites at a time into space within the nosecone of its Falcon 9 rocket system.
Foto: SpaceX stuffed a fleet of 60 Starlink internet-providing satellites into the nosecone of a Falcon 9 rocket for launch in May 2019.sourceElon Musk/SpaceX via Twitter
In early 2019, Musk said it will take about 400 satellites to establish „minor“ internet coverage and 800 satellites for „moderate“ or „significant operational“ coverage. The immediate major goal is to deploy about 1,500 satellites about 340 miles (550 kilometers) high.
Foto: An illustration of SpaceX’s planned Starlink satellite orbits around Earth.sourceSpaceX
The internet, in its simplest form, is a series of connected computers. How and where the computers are connected makes a significant difference to many users, though. SpaceX’s gambit with Starlink is make access faster and more widespread, yet less laggy and expensive.
Foto: A router connecting multiple computers to the internet via cables.sourceAssociated Press
A lot of our data is sent in pulses of light through fiber-optic cables. More packets of information can go farther with a stronger signal that way than they could via electrical signals sent through metal wires.
But fiber is fairly expensive and tedious to lay, especially between locations on opposite sides of the Earth.
Foto: Reeltender Mo Laussie watches fiber-optic cable as he helps install the cable unto telephone poles June 21, 2001 in Louisville, CO.sourceMichael Smith/Getty
Even within a country, achieving a direct wired path from one location to another is rare. Relying on ground cables also leaves many regions poorly connected.
Foto: sourceBusiness Insider
Cables have a speed limit, too: Light moves through the vacuum of space about 47% faster than it can through solid fiber-optic glass.
Foto: A prism bends and splits up white light into a rainbow of colors because the speed of light is slower in glass than it is in air.sourceShutterstock
This isn’t an issue for normal browsing or watching TV. But over international distances, Handley previously said, it leads to high latency, or lag. The time delay is especially pronounced in long-distance videoconferencing and voice calls made over the web.
Foto: The president speaks with children over a video conference.sourceCarolyn Kaster/AP
Data beamed over existing satellites is some of the laggiest. That’s because nearly all those spacecraft orbit from 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) up, where they can „float“ above one location on Earth. That’s enough distance to cause a more than half-second of lag.
Foto: An illustration of two different geostationary satellites, which orbit about 22,300 miles above Earth’s surface.sourceNASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio; Business Insider
Handley said that latency matters most to financial institutions. With markets that move billions of dollars in fractions of a second, any delay can lead to big losses over a competitor with a less laggy (and thus more up-to-date) connection to the web.
Foto: High-frequency-trading companies will try almost any new technology to learn about market changes before a competitor.sourceReuters / Brendan McDermid
Shuttling data around the world via satellite — and mostly through the vacuum of space, not glass — should cut that lag while also providing screaming-fast internet service almost anywhere on Earth.
Foto: An illustration of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet constellation in orbit around Earth.sourceSpaceX
SpaceX deploys each flat-packed stack of 60 satellites by very slowly rotating it in microgravity, causing it to spread like „a deck of cards on a table,“ Musk said in 2019.
From there, the satellites will use Hall thrusters (or ion engines) to rise to an altitude of about 342 miles (550 kilometers). This will be about 65 times closer to Earth than geostationary satellites — and that much less laggy.
Foto: A 13-kilowatt Hall thruster, or ion engine, being tested at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.sourceNASA
Final Starlink spacecraft will link to four others using lasers. No other internet-providing satellites do this, Handley said, and it’s what would make them special: They can beam data over Earth’s surface at nearly the speed of light, bypassing the limitations of fiber-optics.
Foto: An illustration of Starlink, a fleet or constellation of internet-providing satellites designed by SpaceX. This image shows how each satellite connects to four others with laser beams.sourceMark Handley/University College London
But for now, none of the Starlink satellites have laser beams. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and COO, told reporters in October that laser interlinks won’t be working until late 2020 at the soonest.
Foto: Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and COO, in 2017.sourceDia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Until then, Musk says the company will link them via ground stations. A handful of sizable yet steerable antennas that can track satellites will be used to „talk“ to the satellites.
Foto: Satellite tracking antennas in South Texas.sourceDave Mosher/Business Insider
There are also small user terminals for the customers to connect — the ones Musk he said look like „a UFO on a stick“ or, previously, „a sort of a small- to medium-size pizza.“ (Though he or SpaceX has yet to show a picture of one.)
That’s small enough to add to a home. „There’s also no reason one of these couldn’t be flat and thin enough to put on the roof of a car,“ Handley said.
Foto: A Tesla Model Y electric car.sourceTesla
Musk said Starlink terminals would also easily fit on ships, airplanes, and other mobile devices, enabling these vehicles to have better broadband connections than what’s available today.
Foto: sourceNAN728/Shutterstock
Musk said just 1,000 satellites are required „for the system to be economically viable.“ He noted that’s „obviously a lot of satellites, but it’s way less than 10,000 or 12,000.“
Foto: A computer scientist’s rendering of SpaceX’s constellation of satellites for Starlink: a scheme to provide global, high-speed, low-latency internet service.sourceMark Handley/University College London
But according to SpaceX’s FCC filings, the company expects to operate 1 million ground stations. Handley thinks the small terminals will not just download and upload one user’s data, but also act as critical nodes before the laser links are ready — turning customers into a kind of global mesh network.
Foto: A computer scientist’s rendering of SpaceX’s constellation of satellites for Starlink: a scheme to provide global, high-speed, low-latency internet service.sourceMark Handley/University College London
Handley and others previously assumed SpaceX would only use lasers because they took the most direct (and fastest) path through space. But Handley’s new analysis of Starlink’s network suggests turning customers into relays would make the network even faster and more resilient.
Foto: An illustration of Starlink, a fleet or constellation of internet-providing satellites designed by SpaceX. This image shows the shortest path in the network between New York and London.sourceMark Handley/University College London
Without lasers, data could get to and from computers around the world through Starlink by bouncing from satellite to user terminal to satellite and so on in a light-speed daisy-chain.
Foto: A computer scientist’s rendering of SpaceX’s constellation of satellites for Starlink: a scheme to provide global, high-speed, low-latency internet service.sourceMark Handley/University College London
Handley calculated this would significantly beat the speed of the current internet, and even an ideal one made entirely of uninterrupted fiber-optic cable.
Foto: sourceMark Handley/University College London
And as more users sign up and plug in their UFO-like terminals, Starlink satellites overhead may have more options for building optimal paths to transmit data.
Foto: An illustration of SpaceX’s constellation of thousands of Starlink satellites to provide global, high-speed, low-latency internet.sourceMark Handley/University College London
Customer terminals also solved a problem Handley previously saw with planned laser links: Due to the arrangement of the satellites in space, some connections — like London to Johannesburg — had to go out of their way, causing them to be slower than fiber-optic cables.
Foto: A computer scientist’s rendering of SpaceX’s constellation of satellites for Starlink: a scheme to provide global, high-speed, low-latency internet service.sourceMark Handley/University College London
Using terminals alone made the trip much quicker, according to his model.
Foto: A computer scientist’s rendering of SpaceX’s constellation of satellites for Starlink: a scheme to provide global, high-speed, low-latency internet service.sourceMark Handley/University College London
Mixing both the laser links and user terminals, though, provided the fastest of any solution to shuttle internet data to and from a location.
Foto: A computer scientist’s rendering of SpaceX’s constellation of satellites for Starlink: a scheme to provide global, high-speed, low-latency internet service.sourceMark Handley/University College London
One hurdle SpaceX needs to overcome before laser links are available: Oceans. Though ground stations strategically placed on islands could close the gap. Handley suspects terminals attached to ships would still be needed.
But even Handley doesn’t see too much of a problem. „Ships aren’t cheap, but they’re not cheaper than rockets. So this is probably doable,“ he said in his video.
Foto: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches Starlink at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, May 23, 2019.sourceUS Air Force/1st Lt Alex Preisser
It might be even cheaper for SpaceX to put ground stations close to fiber-optic cables and use them to bridge the divide, at least until the lasers become available.
Foto: sourceTeleGeography
In any case, the data won’t magically know which path it should take; SpaceX will have to constantly calculate the locations of all its satellites and ground stations. But Handley said he was able to compute that in negligible with his personal computer „with a few devious tricks inspired by how game engines work.“
Foto: A computer scientist’s rendering of SpaceX’s constellation of satellites for Starlink: a scheme to provide global, high-speed, low-latency internet service.sourceMark Handley/University College London
More than 40 trillion gallons of rain drenched the Southeast United States in the last week from Hurricane Helene and a run-of-the-mill rainstorm that sloshed in ahead of it — an unheard of amount of water that has stunned experts.
That’s enough to fill the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium 51,000 times, or Lake Tahoe just once. If it was concentrated just on the state of North Carolina that much water would be 3.5 feet deep (more than 1 meter). It’s enough to fill more than 60 million Olympic-size swimming pools.
“That’s an astronomical amount of precipitation,” said Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. “I have not seen something in my 25 years of working at the weather service that is this geographically large of an extent and the sheer volume of water that fell from the sky.”
The flood damage from the rain is apocalyptic, meteorologists said. More than 100 people are dead, according to officials.
Private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former NOAA chief scientist, calculated the amount of rain, using precipitation measurements made in 2.5-mile-by-2.5 mile grids as measured by satellites and ground observations. He came up with 40 trillion gallons through Sunday for the eastern United States, with 20 trillion gallons of that hitting just Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas and Florida from Hurricane Helene.
Clark did the calculations independently and said the 40 trillion gallon figure (151 trillion liters) is about right and, if anything, conservative. Maue said maybe 1 to 2 trillion more gallons of rain had fallen, much if it in Virginia, since his calculations.
Clark, who spends much of his work on issues of shrinking western water supplies, said to put the amount of rain in perspective, it’s more than twice the combined amount of water stored by two key Colorado River basin reservoirs: Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Several meteorologists said this was a combination of two, maybe three storm systems. Before Helene struck, rain had fallen heavily for days because a low pressure system had “cut off” from the jet stream — which moves weather systems along west to east — and stalled over the Southeast. That funneled plenty of warm water from the Gulf of Mexico. And a storm that fell just short of named status parked along North Carolina’s Atlantic coast, dumping as much as 20 inches of rain, said North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello.
Then add Helene, one of the largest storms in the last couple decades and one that held plenty of rain because it was young and moved fast before it hit the Appalachians, said University of Albany hurricane expert Kristen Corbosiero.
“It was not just a perfect storm, but it was a combination of multiple storms that that led to the enormous amount of rain,” Maue said. “That collected at high elevation, we’re talking 3,000 to 6000 feet. And when you drop trillions of gallons on a mountain, that has to go down.”
The fact that these storms hit the mountains made everything worse, and not just because of runoff. The interaction between the mountains and the storm systems wrings more moisture out of the air, Clark, Maue and Corbosiero said.
North Carolina weather officials said their top measurement total was 31.33 inches in the tiny town of Busick. Mount Mitchell also got more than 2 feet of rainfall.
Before 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, “I said to our colleagues, you know, I never thought in my career that we would measure rainfall in feet,” Clark said. “And after Harvey, Florence, the more isolated events in eastern Kentucky, portions of South Dakota. We’re seeing events year in and year out where we are measuring rainfall in feet.”
Storms are getting wetter as the climate change s, said Corbosiero and Dello. A basic law of physics says the air holds nearly 4% more moisture for every degree Fahrenheit warmer (7% for every degree Celsius) and the world has warmed more than 2 degrees (1.2 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
Corbosiero said meteorologists are vigorously debating how much of Helene is due to worsening climate change and how much is random.
For Dello, the “fingerprints of climate change” were clear.
“We’ve seen tropical storm impacts in western North Carolina. But these storms are wetter and these storms are warmer. And there would have been a time when a tropical storm would have been heading toward North Carolina and would have caused some rain and some damage, but not apocalyptic destruction. ”
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It’s a dinosaur that roamed Alberta’s badlands more than 70 million years ago, sporting a big, bumpy, bony head the size of a baby elephant.
On Wednesday, paleontologists near Grande Prairie pulled its 272-kilogram skull from the ground.
They call it “Big Sam.”
The adult Pachyrhinosaurus is the second plant-eating dinosaur to be unearthed from a dense bonebed belonging to a herd that died together on the edge of a valley that now sits 450 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
It didn’t die alone.
“We have hundreds of juvenile bones in the bonebed, so we know that there are many babies and some adults among all of the big adults,” Emily Bamforth, a paleontologist with the nearby Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, said in an interview on the way to the dig site.
She described the horned Pachyrhinosaurus as “the smaller, older cousin of the triceratops.”
“This species of dinosaur is endemic to the Grand Prairie area, so it’s found here and nowhere else in the world. They are … kind of about the size of an Indian elephant and a rhino,” she added.
The head alone, she said, is about the size of a baby elephant.
The discovery was a long time coming.
The bonebed was first discovered by a high school teacher out for a walk about 50 years ago. It took the teacher a decade to get anyone from southern Alberta to come to take a look.
“At the time, sort of in the ’70s and ’80s, paleontology in northern Alberta was virtually unknown,” said Bamforth.
When paleontogists eventually got to the site, Bamforth said, they learned “it’s actually one of the densest dinosaur bonebeds in North America.”
“It contains about 100 to 300 bones per square metre,” she said.
Paleontologists have been at the site sporadically ever since, combing through bones belonging to turtles, dinosaurs and lizards. Sixteen years ago, they discovered a large skull of an approximately 30-year-old Pachyrhinosaurus, which is now at the museum.
About a year ago, they found the second adult: Big Sam.
Bamforth said both dinosaurs are believed to have been the elders in the herd.
“Their distinguishing feature is that, instead of having a horn on their nose like a triceratops, they had this big, bony bump called a boss. And they have big, bony bumps over their eyes as well,” she said.
“It makes them look a little strange. It’s the one dinosaur that if you find it, it’s the only possible thing it can be.”
The genders of the two adults are unknown.
Bamforth said the extraction was difficult because Big Sam was intertwined in a cluster of about 300 other bones.
The skull was found upside down, “as if the animal was lying on its back,” but was well preserved, she said.
She said the excavation process involved putting plaster on the skull and wooden planks around if for stability. From there, it was lifted out — very carefully — with a crane, and was to be shipped on a trolley to the museum for study.
“I have extracted skulls in the past. This is probably the biggest one I’ve ever done though,” said Bamforth.
“It’s pretty exciting.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2024.
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.”
