Astronomers have had five years to brace for the impact of SpaceX’s Starlink internet-satellite megaconstellation, but the first few batches of the spacecraft still managed to catch the community off guard.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk announced the Starlink concept (though not the name) back in January 2015, explaining that the company intended to launch about 4,000 broadband satellites to low Earth orbit to provide low-cost internet service to people around the world.
The envisioned numbers have grown since then. SpaceX now has permission from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to loft about 12,000 Starlink craft, and the company has applied to an international radio-frequency regulator for approval of up to 30,000 additional satellites. (For perspective: There are only about 2,000 operational satellites in orbit today, and humanity has launched fewer than 9,000 craft into space in all of history, according to the United Nations’ Office of Outer Space Affairs.)
Nearly 200 Starlink craft are already circling Earth. SpaceX lofted the first batch of 60 satellites last May and performed similar launches in November and this past Monday (Jan. 6).
These three missions have been eye-opening for skywatchers and professional astronomers alike. Shortly after deployment, the Starlink craft look like a bright string of pearls as they race together across the sky. This formation disbands as the 500-lb. (225 kilograms) satellites disperse and climb to their final operational altitude about 340 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth’s surface — but the individual spacecraft remain visible to the naked eye, even way up there.
“What surprised everyone — the astronomy community and SpaceX — was how bright their satellites are,” Patrick Seitzer, an astronomy professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, said Wednesday (Jan. 8) during a special news conference at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) called “Astronomy Confronts Satellite Constellations.”
“We knew these tens of thousands(-strong) megaconstellations were coming, but based on the sizes and shapes of things currently in orbit, I thought maybe 8th or 9 magnitude,” Seitzer added. “We were not expecting 2nd or 3rd magnitude in the parking orbits, and we certainly not expecting 4th to 5th magnitudes in the [operational] orbits.”
The magnitude scale used by astronomers assigns lower numbers to objects that appear brighter in the sky. For example, the brightest object in our sky, the sun, has a magnitude of minus 27, whereas the faintest objects you can see with binoculars are around plus 10. Only objects about plus 6 or brighter can be seen by the naked eye under clear, dark skies.
This surprising brightness has many astronomers worried. The huge number of coming Starlink satellites — and SpaceX plans to launch nearly 1,600 more just by the end of this year — could severely compromise the ability of ground-based scopes to do their work, some researchers have said.
The high-profile project most likely to be affected, Seitzer said, is the Vera Rubin Observatory. This big instrument, which was until Monday known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), is scheduled to come online a few years from now in the Chilean Andes.
“The survey is the most impacted by bright satellite trails because of its wide field of view and extreme sensitivity,” Seitzer said, citing a statement provided to him by Vera Rubin Observatory chief scientist Tony Tyson. “The original Starlinks will saturate the LSST’s detectors.”
But Starlink’s effects will be felt beyond the astronomical research community — indeed, by pretty much everyone around the world, dark-sky advocates have stressed. The star-filled night sky is an international resource and one of the only ways that many people commune with nature in our increasingly urban and technological world, said Ruskin Hartley, executive director of the International Dark Sky Association. So, we should think hard about how we manage that resource, he said.
“The night sky is the ultimate public good; it’s our ultimate commons,” Hartley said during Wednesday’s news conference. “No one individual can protect it. And the flip side, I believe, [is] no one individual should be allowed to despoil that.”
Astronomers have voiced their concerns to SpaceX and found a receptive audience, said Jeffrey Hall, the director of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.
“We have not had to cajole SpaceX in any way; they’ve been very receptive, very proactive, in holding roughly monthly telecons with us,” Hall said during Wednesday’s news conference.
So far, he added, those telecons have mostly been informational, telling the astronomical community when the company plans to launch and deploy more Starlink satellites, and into which orbits.
“It’s been a little more staying in touch than making a lot of progress on mitigation,” Hall said. (He added that astronomers plan to speak soon with OneWeb, which has launched the first half-dozen members of its own big internet-satellite constellation. A few other companies, including Amazon, are planning similar networks of their own, but none will be as big as SpaceX’s is envisioned to become.)
But SpaceX representatives have expressed a desire to mitigate, and they’ve recently taken some action toward this end. For example, Patricia Cooper, SpaceX’s vice president of satellite government affairs, presented a paper during the special AAS scientific session about megaconstellations on Wednesday (though the company didn’t participate in the news conference that day).
And one of the 60 spacecraft that launched on Monday sported a special coating designed to reduce its brightness. If everything goes well, and the coating doesn’t seriously affect the satellite’s performance (through increased solar heating, for example), this mitigation measure could eventually become widespread across the Starlink fleet.
Not everyone is satisfied by such steps. Consider the question asked by astrophysicist and science communicator Ethan Siegel, who was in the audience at Wednesday’s news conference.
“I apologize for this question, because I’m having difficulty controlling my fury at this situation,” Siegel began. “Why should astronomers trust SpaceX — which knows about this [brightness] problem but is deliberately worsening this instead of addressing it before additional launches — instead of seeking a legal or international mandate for regulation? Are we Elon Musk’s Neville Chamberlain?”
In response, Hall explained that the astronomy community doesn’t really have much choice.
“The launches are underway right now. I think regulation of the Wild West up there is necessary; that is going to take a great deal of time to implement, just because of the nature of that beast,” Hall said.
“Therefore, there is no advantage or upside to distrusting what SpaceX colleagues have told us,” he added. “We will simply take them at face value and work as best as we can and honestly with them to try to solve the situation. They are on the record saying they want to solve the situation for astronomy. We are working to identify the targets they will need to hit to make that happen, and then we’ll see what happens.”
Mike Wall’s book about the search for alien life, “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated byKarl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter@Spacedotcom orFacebook.
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.
