since 2019 years since SpaceX After launching the first mega-constellation of thousands of satellites, more than doubling the number of satellites in low-Earth orbit, astronomers are warning that light pollution from the proliferation of satellites orbiting Earth is threatening their work.
The night sky is the shared wilderness of the planet, yet like any wilderness, it has been polluted by light pollution caused by humans.since 1957 Year Sputnik 1 Since No.Already thousands of satellitesAnd space junk fragments are sent into orbit, the original satellites are not enough to pose a hazard, but now thousands of satellite constellations appear, the situation is completely different.
Not just SpaceX In launching a huge constellation of satellites,Amazon of Blue Origin alsoplan to launch 3,200 Many Project Kuiper satellite,AST SpaceMobile plan to launch 100 grain BlueBird satellite, launched last year BlueBird prototype BlueWalker 3 hasShocked among astronomers.
BlueWalker 3 range up to 64 square meters, about the size of a squash court, this vast surface is very good at reflecting sunlight,BlueWalker 3 Bright as some of the brightest stars in the night sky now, and BlueBird satellite possiblewill be biggerbrighter.Last month, the U.S. telecommunications services regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Approved by Amazon Project Kuiper plan, allow launch 3,236 satellites.
The light pollution caused by satellites comes mostly from the satellites themselves and from collisions, and astronomers say each new satellite increases its risk of hitting another object orbiting Earth, creating more debris, which creates a chain reaction in which cascading collisions Smaller and smaller debris would be produced, further adding to the cloud of space junk that reflects light back to Earth. Astronomers published a study in “Nature Astronomy” warning that this growing light pollution seriously threatens astronomical observations.
They measure how much a brighter night sky has a financial and scientific impact on the work of large observatories.Models show that for the giant telescope currently under construction in Chile, the Vera Rubin Observatory (Vera Rubin Observatory) the darkest part of the night sky will increase in brightness over the next decade 7.5%the number of stars visible to the observatory decreases by about 7.5%which would extend the observatory’s survey by almost a year and cost about 2,180 Ten thousand U.S. dollars.
There is another incalculable price to brighter skies, which is that some celestial events will never be observed by humans.Astronomers say the satellites are bright enough to create trails in images taken by telescopes, obscuring stars and galaxies. Astronomers can only remedy this by taking more images, but short transients such asgamma ray burstA brief flash of light could result in missed observation opportunities.
Astronomers are worried that the natural appearance of the original night sky will disappear. In the future, humans will not be able to capture the full picture of the natural night sky even if they go to the top of K2, the highest peak in Pakistan, the shore of Lake Titicaca in South America, or Easter Island. Unprecedented threat, astronomers have called for restrictions on mega-satellite constellations, warning that if they are not banned, such behavior will only intensify.
(Source of first picture: pixabay)
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