Private com-sat companies are planning to launch so many satellites that even SPACE telescopes will be compromised

[SorellaLaBefana]

Satellite swarms set to photobomb more than 95% of some telescopes’ images

...Blurry streaks of light created by fast-moving artificial satellites are already known to mar images taken by ground-based observatories. Today, researchers report in Nature that space-based telescopes will not escape such interference as fleets of private satellites proliferate. The researchers found that in the next decade, satellite trails could taint roughly 96% of the images taken by some space-based telescopes, and a single image could contain as many as 92 streaks...

The researchers simulated roughly 18 months of observations, taking faux space pictures with various numbers of satellites in orbit ...They found that if 560,000 satellites are in orbit — the number currently planned for launch — their trails will contaminate from 40% to more than 96% of each telescope’s images. And with one million satellites in orbit, the number of streaks per image reaches 165 for some observatories. At that rate, “we will have fewer discoveries, less interesting images and, in general, less knowledge”, says Borlaff. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment about the effects of its constellation...

This Nature report is paywalled, but you can read enough of it for free to get the essentials

We've been looking at the stars since before we were we

[slightlv]

1. I hate the thought of us, as much as I hate all the light pollution most of us have to live with

right now. I remember sitting on the front porch of my house in a small town in KS, and my Dad pointing out the Milky Way to me. No way to see it these days from where I'm at. I'm lucky to catch one of the "great" meteor showers... maybe one meteorite or two with trails IF the show is suppose to be one of the "great" ones. I look forward to December only for the meteor show around the Solstice. This year, if hubby is feeling good, we may bundle up and head out to the way farm area west of us to try to catch the show. It's hard to get away from the Kansas City lights, even this far out.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. More FUCK THE PLANET, FUCK THE ENVIRONMENT, FUCK THE HUMAN RACE from the billionaire bros ... nt