by Astronomers have been complaining for more than five years about the effect that satellite would have mega sets on their observations. The launch in 2019 of the first Starlink -Satellites, initially clear enough to be seen through the naked eye, brought astronomers to take action to increase consciousness about the threat and to collaborate with companies such as SpaceX to reduce potential interference.
In the worst case, these efforts have avoided scenarios about the impact of mega units in the worst case. Of particular importance, the effect that Starlink and other systems would have on the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, planned to start observations later this year. The wide field of vision and the sensitive camera of the telescope, designed to examine the entire southern sky every three days, ensured that astronomers are concerned that the images cross with stripes of satellites, reducing their scientific use.
For the time being, Rubin Observatory astronomers say, the problem is manageable.
“It’s just a nuisance and not catastrophic,” said Yusra Alsayyyad, a Rubin astronomer, during a briefing at the 245th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) January 16. She estimated that less than 1% of the pixels on each image will be influenced by satellites.
Astronomers do not explain the victory. Instead, while they continue to work on satellite interference problems, they continue to expand their work to other topics that are broadly associated with sustainability of space. These issues range from the threat of intrusive space ads and reentries that disrupt their observations to the danger of confusing asteroids with flying Teslas.
Reentries and the fake -asteroid phenomenon
During the AAS meeting, the largest annual conference for astronomers, the organization announced that it had adopted a new resolution that was against the development of what is known as ‘intrusive space -ads’ or satellites in a job to display advertising images that can be seen from the ground. Just like satellite mega sets, astronomers are ensuring that such advertisements can disrupt their observations.
For the time being, that care is largely a theoretical one. In the United States, the federal law has forbidden for decades of intrusive space -advertising, but John Barentine of Dark Sky Consulting, a member of the AAS’s Committee for the protection of astronomy and the Space Environment (Completse), said the AAs worrying that other nations ensure that other nations, just like Russia, could possibly allow it.
“There is reason to assume that this activity will be pursued worldwide,” he said during a briefing during the AAS meeting. “The temptation is so great that I can’t imagine that nobody will try.” He said that the AAS encourages other countries to use forbidden on space -advertisements such as the US.
Although interference from space advertising remains hypothetically, other phenomena are now happening. One of them is created so -called “ionospheric holes” when the exhaust of upper stages that carry out the earring burns with the ionosphere, which creates a bright red glow in the night sky that can hang for half an hour.
“They are one of the wildest things you can see in the night sky,” said Stephen Hummel of McDonald Observatory during the AAS meeting. “When I saw my first ionospheric hole, I thought:” Ok, aliens are real. “
Civil servants of McDonald Observatory, located in West -Texas, regularly see ionospheric holes from Falcon 9 launches from Florida, where the upper phase carries out a Deorbite fire wound with a view to the observatory after almost one job to be again in the South Atlantic Ocean come. “It can be quite impactful for everything in that air region,” he said about the effect they can have on astronomy.
For the time being, astronomers are not looking for a specific action to tackle ionosferic holes and work instead to better understand them. “They are quite difficult to accurately predict,” said Hummel. “We look forward to working with others to try to predict these events.”
It is not only rockets coming in again that worry astronomers. Last September the AAs published a statement about satellites reentries, with regard to their concern about how the increasing number of satellites could influence the atmosphere when those spacecraft arrive at the end of their lives.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for astrophysics that also follows space activities, noted in a session at the conference that a maximum of 10% of the stratosferic aerosols are now “small blobs of melted satellites” and that metal of satellites in the satellites in the satellites In the satellites in the upper atmosphere, what is naturally deposited from meteors.
More recently, the AAS has focused on how the environmental effects of satellite rendies can harm the work of astronomers. “Pollution by Reentries could possibly increase the opacity of the atmosphere of the earth,” noted in his statement that influences observations based on the ground, “and could induce an airglow that increases the brightness of the night sky, so that us ability to study weak astronomical objects limited. “
The interest of astronomers in the sustainability of space goes beyond the atmosphere and satellites in the earth. Last year, the AAS published another statement in which “transparency” was called in operations in Cislunar space and beyond. It early governments and companies to share more information about spacecraft that go beyond the earth around the earth.
That sharing information, argues the organization is needed for safe space activities. It can also help astronomers to avoid the confusing spacecraft with objects such as asteroids. “We have several cases of newly discovered asteroids who turn out not to be asteroids,” said McDowell. That included a recent case in which he remembered: “We had to retire one out of the catalog because it was actually the Tesla of Elon (Musk)” of the first Falcon Heavy launch.
Struggle to take action
However, it is difficult to make those worries about satellite interference or other problems with the sustainability of the space in action. A lack of information, financing and authority have hindered astronomers’ efforts to convince government agencies to act.
“I am much to ask as a policy analyst, why not just take a law that says what the satellite clearance should be?” Lindsay Demarchi, a senior policy analyst at the Aerospace Corporation, said a non -profit company that carries out technical and policy assessments on space subjects.
The problem, she said, is that different telescopes have different sensitivities, while predicting the brightness of a satellite as seen from the ground can be difficult.
In addition, while companies like SpaceX have taken steps to reduce the clarity of their satellites, they have encountered problems that have met the recommended brightness of astronomers.
A proposal to improve that effort was the legislation introduced last year by Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) And Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) to create a Center of Excellence, under the supervision of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to study ways Satellite developers can reduce interference.
“You can regard the Center of Excellence as a sort of a university or non -profit with its sights on material progress to dark and quiet skies,” she said, using existing facilities to test throughout the country. The bill was not successful, but can be re -introduced this year in some form.
Similarly, although there is interest among astronomers and other scientists to better understand how satellite reentries influence the atmosphere, there is little financing for research on the subject, and no agreement on who should support that research.
“There must be much more research. We really don’t understand this problem at all, “said Marlon Sorge, executive director of the Center for Orbital and Re -Try Debris Studies of Aerospace Corporation, during a briefing in December on the annual space report of the space travel of Aerospace. However, he stopped briefly to recommend how much financing should go into research into return or which agencies should finance this.
Representatives of government agencies said it was difficult to regulate the care for sustainability of spaces that have been discussed by astronomers under the current laws, referring to the Supreme Court ruling last year that the legal concept that is known as “Chevron -Ibbye “, which appears to arrange” Chevron -Bee “.
“I think that the ability of supervisors to interpret things like a dark and quiet airs in broader author subsidies that people did not expect when the laws were adopted is increasingly being questioned,” said Gabriel Swiney, director of the Office Or Space Commerce’s policy, advocacy and international division, during the AAS meeting.
He spoke on a panel with Steph Earle of the FAAs Office of Commercial Space Transportation, which offered a similar picture. “Many of the things that have been mentioned today do not fit into areas that can consider the FAA when assessing a launch license application, he said.” If the legislation comes to the fore, I can do something in those areas. “
For the time being, the most effective path for short-term action is astronomers that work directly with satellite and launch companies. Such a collaboration has been underway in reducing the brightness of satellites and now extends to other areas, such as radio frequency interference. The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced an agreement with SpaceX last August to work together in approaches to reduce interference between Starlink and NSF-valued radio telescopes.
“There used to be a real hatred between radio astronomy and satellite operators,” Jennifer May, a former satellite industry director who is now a senior adviser for space and satellite policy at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. There has been a “sea change” in that relationship more recently, she said. “There is really respect and willingness to get things done. That is something that is really important. “
This article first appeared in the February 2025 issue of Spacenews Magazine entitled “Clearing the Skies”
