
The Night Sky Will Never Be the Same - sunnyP
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/02/spacex-starlink-astronomy/606169/
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_Microft
The orbits are known and predictable, could they be fed into a sort of dynamic
coronagraph that occludes the glares of the satellites while they move through
the field of view of a telescope?

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jdashg
For serious astronomy this isn't viable, and for amateurs this really puts a
dent in the magic and sanctity the night sky as we've known it throughout the
entire history of our species. If only we could add "the night sky" to
UNESCO's world heritage lists.

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look_lookatme
> "Obviously not everyone can pick up and relocate to the woods to experience
> the unobscured beauty of the sky. But there still are, for now, places where
> you’d expect not to see artificial stars passing overhead."

Well the writer may expect it, but it hasn't really existed for a long time.

If Starlink enables me to live somewhere like the western states or the great
north woods and still work remotely and stay connected with the world then
this is a tradeoff I'm more than willing to accept.

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imiric
That's great for you. What about those who aren't willing to accept that
tradeoff? It seems there's literally no action we can take besides voicing our
concerns on fora like this.

I'm deeply concerned about the ramifications of Starlink and the precedents it
sets for further sky pollution. For all of mankind's history we've been able
to look to the skies for guidance, inspiration, knowledge and truth. Space
objects have guided our understanding of the universe and our place within it.
It's absolutely criminal that in a span of a few years this might be
obstructed by the goals of one or several corporations, under the veil of
improving global internet connectivity. It's doubtful whether accomplishing
that goal will bring world prosperity or simply make SpaceX and Musk the
biggest beneficiaries.

Whether this benefit will fuel further space exploration and the
commercialization of space travel is also irrelevant at this point in time.
There's no practical reason for humanity to reach Mars in the immediate future
as Musk has proposed. We have far bigger problems on Earth today that won't
get solved by simply throwing technology at it, yet solving them would bring
more benefits to humanity than having internet access in remote parts of the
world. Practical problems like famine, clean water supplies, diseases,
pollution, climate change, political corruption and wars seem much more
important than being able to access Facebook from a mountain in Siberia.

While there's no reason we couldn't work on all of those concurrently, and
global internet access would certainly help in that process, there's been no
global discussion on whether a system of satellites this disruptive is what
the entire world actually wants. Governments will certainly benefit from
improved surveillance capabilities and we'll have more trillion dollar
corporations and billionaires, but these aren't global goals.

Apologies for the rantiness of this, I'm not sure I can put my feeling of
dread properly into words. And don't get me started on Neuralink, another
rushed Musk venture we need to address as a species and civilization...

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AndrewKemendo
This is an example of an externality. Externalities are historically extremely
hard to address.

If you think of starlink sattelites being visible as a form of pollution,
light pollution I suppose in this case, then it makes sense why the economics
aren't priced in and there's little that can be done by a minority of this
impacted.

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eleitl
SpaceX is trialing a new absorbent coating on the new launches
[https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-
astronomy-p...](https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-astronomy-
plans.html)

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jbotz
According to this at least one satellite with the new coating went up in
December... anyone know how that's working out?

Also, why are they so bright, given that they're pretty small?

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tejtm
There is a really really bright light shining on them against a background
dominated by well not much, the glow of the milky way.

Consider our moon is the one of the darkest objects we know of, about the
color of a asphalt parking lot.

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detritus
If SpaceX's (et al) plans come to fruition, I say just give it a decade or two
and start planning to send up a load of telescopes in 'Starships' or whatever
they'll have then.

I'm a big astronomy fan, but I'd take the [not impossibly large from my
perspective] hit in the short term where observations are concerned. In that
short-term, I don't think it's an insurmountable problem anyway.

\- ed

as an aside, this was posted on The Register earlier today

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/06/space_comms_revolut...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/06/space_comms_revolution_starlink_aws/)

