Technology @lemmy.world Flying Squid @lemmy.world 1 yr. ago

Huge new satellite outshines nearly every star in the sky

www.nature.com Huge new satellite outshines nearly every star in the sky

At times, the enormous telecommunications spacecraft is brighter than some of the most iconic stars visible from Earth.

33 comments

Depressing actually. Future generations will look up and see shitty satellites.
- i remember when i was a kid, i was hiking with my parents and we spent a night on about 2500m and looking up i obviously had a great view of the cosmos BUT i also could see some satelites moving and even the then MIR space station. i was impressed that "we" are actually up there for everyone down here to see. i guess the current generation want's a pristine night sky AND 24/7 internet, gps and tv.
  
  A. Why is this a generational thing? I guess you’re a boomer or xer? B. 1 or two satellites or space stations are neat. Your story was from a time when not every company in the world could get something up there with little regulation. C. Yeah, nature is always more beautiful than our creations. Imagine many years from now when there may be so many visible satellites in the sky it’s not a novelty like it was to you as a child. D. This kind of apathy is how we got into the climate crisis today.
  
  Why not both? Like we've had for....decades.
  
  The current generation, AND the previous generation (that being millennials, many of whom are now in their 40s) both would rather the natural beauty of our entire planet not be destroyed just so the likes of Elon Musk can sell a product.
- That seems more than a tad hyperbolic. My wife and I enjoy sitting in our backyard next to the fire and stargazing every now and again. We'll catch maybe a dozen satellites on a good night, during the couple hours post-sunset when you can actually catch the sunlight glinting off them. By about 2 hours after sunset, the number of objects that are both high enough to still reflect sunlight and large enough to see is pretty tiny.
  
  I see vastly more planes with blinking lights and bright landing lights than I do satellites, and this has been the case for decades, but somehow that's not a threat to our enjoyment of the night sky?
  
  Every light adds to light pollution though and makes it more difficult for earth-based astronomy. And that's excluding events where satilites pass through observations.
  
  Extremely annoying, but inevitable I guess.
- Hopefully they will have de-orbited by then and we would have found a better solution. But then we may not have too many generations left anyway.
  
  I'm surprised if most of humanity makes it through the coming 20 years.
  
  I think we have seen our best decades already.
- That's a pretty anti technology stance though.
The Economist had an article a few months ago talking about how modern satellite fleets were so bright, they were threatening to make earth based astronomy impossible. Its title: "Goodbye, darkness, my old friend".
- They probably threaten some space telescopes, too. The Starlink satellites are a little higher than Hubble. I would imagine they might take up a decent amount of field of view to Hubble, by being closer.
  
  They are at almost the same altitude, 540 km vs 550 km. There is probably almost never a starlink sat in view for the Hubble, they would need top be right on to of each other, the satellite would pass by at a very high speed and you wouldn't see another for days.
The satellite's antenna array is huge. No wonder it's a lot brighter when seen next to a starlink satellite, which looks like a mere speck in comparison.
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  
  seen next to a starlink sattelite
  
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Imagine someone putting an array of intentionally reflective mini satellites into orbit and then relocate them into mini B/W images just for fun. Or more realistically for advertisement purposes…

The fact that there are multiple persons with the capability to do this is crazy.
- We've kinda done that before, the first communications satellites were just giant reflectors, made to be as bright as possible.
I don't know all the uses for satellites but is it possible to reduce the number of them by coordinating efforts? Combine these 3 into 1? Can we be more intelligent about it?
- I think that's already the case in many situations.
  
  Thing is a given system is going to need a given number of sats in specific orbits. Sure you can add earth observation equipment (weather, sat imagery etc) to almost anything (albeit maybe not that useful in some orbits) but you can't really combine Satellite TV and GPS.
  
  I'd also like to point out, every time Starlink launches, you get articles like these showing multiple streaks across some image from a telescope. Those images are 100% intentionally gathered. And Starlink is only that bright while maneuvering and very near sunset and sunrise. Once they are in their final location they dim down.
The Sun: Can't outshine me bitches!
- Don't tempt Elon.
Finally!!

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