Starlink And Its Impact On Astronomy
Вставка
- Опубліковано 10 вер 2024
- On Monday, January 6th, 2020, another SpaceX Falcon 9 blasted off from Cape Canaveral, carrying another 60 Starlink internet communications satellites, bringing the full size of the constellation to 180. With just three launches, SpaceX becomes the largest satellite operator in the world.
But the company is just getting started. They’re planning to do this again every couple of weeks during 2020, bringing the total number of satellites in the constellation to about 1440, which is enough to provide high-speed internet services to the United States and parts of Canada.
Shortly after launch, as the satellites are raising their altitude, they’re clearly visible to the eye as they streak across the sky in a close train.
Astronomers aren’t happy.
Thumbnail credit: DELVE Survey / CTIO / AURA / NSF
Our Book is out!
www.amazon.com...
Audio Podcast version:
ITunes: itunes.apple.c...
RSS: www.universeto...
Weekly email newsletter:
www.universeto...
Weekly Space Hangout:
/ @weeklyspacehangout
Astronomy Cast:
/ @astronomycast
Support us at / universetoday
More stories at www.universeto...
Twitch: / fcain
Twitter: @universetoday
Facebook: / universetoday
Instagram - / universetoday
Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / frasercain@gmail.com
Karla Thompson - @karlaii / / @karlathompson001
Chad Weber - weber.chad@gmail.com
References:
www.businessin...
www.scientific...
www.theverge.c...
spacenews.com/...
www.businessin...
I'm amazed at how easily one person can privatize the sky without any serious backlash.
Tbh if gives me a feeling of deep dread like in the pit of my stomach
Bring back the guillotine.
Same as anything. No one voted on any of this.
Hearing Fraser say “PostFapShame” wasn’t something I was expecting to take away from this video LOL
Hah, yeah, that was the name they chose for themselves as a patron.
I wonder what else we could get him to say? 🧐 😂
I must say, this did make me laugh!!! Come on patrons, let's see what we can get Fraser to say 👍😎😆😆
@@theCodyReeder oh hello Cody I didn't expect to see you here 😂
@@theCodyReeder Woah, Cody's in here, sweet! Will Starlink Charcoal?
I've been struggling to form an opinion for several months. I think I've completed the task, though I'll try to keep my mind open to fresh arguments.
Here's the gist. The human population is still rising. And our technology is still advancing. Impacts on Earth-based astronomy have gone hand in hand with both trends. Light pollution is increasing. Radio waves from terrestrial sources are increasing. Even the atmosphere is changing, with humans as the agents of that change. It's getting harder to do terrestrial astronomy - and the only way to reverse that trend is to reduce our population and eliminate conflicting sources of light and radio waves.
We can't. We need to keep advancing our technological civilization. People demand it. And we can't curb our birth rates, either, though that's a complex subject with a lot of variables in play. But the simple truth is that people will not allow governments to deprive them of the liberty to reproduce as they see fit.
This isn't just about microsatellites in near-Earth orbit. It's about *everything* people are doing, and everything they want. Impacts on Earth-based astronomy will be larger with every passing year; it's unavoidable.
There are some technical mitigations: choosing how to use Earth-based implements, timing, computer controls, albedo-fussing for satellites, etc. But the trend will continue anyway.
We really have no choice but to shift gears, to rely more heavily on space-based instruments and phase out Earth-based instruments. This shift doesn't have to happen overnight. It can take place over decades. But we may as well start thinking about it now, because the problem isn't going to go away. It's going to get worse.
In the long term, i think this is what we'll see, and already NASA is taking into account vastly cheaper launch costs for their missions. Flying on a Falcon rocket lets you fly twice as much science. We'll see if Starship continues this trend.
Hopefully. I talked about this recently with a friend studying astronomy, and I think he makes a good point. It’s gonna be really tough sending basically hundreds of these half-mile long telescopes into space. Imagine the costs and logistics.
Just look at China’s FAST for example. That telescope’s literally wedged between a mountain range.
So right now it does seem kind of at Sci-Fi levels of economy to send up enough space telescopes to work as well as earth telescopes
@@TasX Rather obviously, we'll have to rethink telescope design.
Terrestrial scopes take advantage of - and are limited by - engineering in 1 G, on a rotating planet which only divulges a portion of the sky at any given moment. We've gotten some good results, but I know of no-one who thinks that we couldn't do better with an atmosphere out of the equation and no planet's bulk interfering with our field of view, and lesser structural requirements inflicted on us by terrestrial gravity's burden.
We get good results by using multiple radiotelescopes scattered about to increase our viewing aperture; in space we can exploit this phenomenon almost without limit.
The best scopes humans will ever design don't yet exist. But when they do, they will not be terrestrial scopes.
@@TasX I don't see why they can't put hundreds of smaller telescopes and Link them together as one huge telescope. I think we will see technology like that emerge
@@Bryan-Hensley I don't think it works that way. I'm in no way an astrophysicist, but I think the reasons Earth radiotelescopes are so big is mainly due to the large wavelength and tiny amplitudes of these faraway stars.
You're thinking in terms of the visible spectrum which we use to eyeball stars. But most extreterrestrial stuff we detect are not in this spectrum and too dim to capture without a single large source of amplification.
So it's actually a physical constraint we have. Like let's say you have a thousand normal eyes versus one giant eye. Which one would be able see further? One giant eye.
I'm an IT communications professional, astrophotographer, I've also homesteaded in the middle of nowhere (and suffered from terrible internet) and every spring I storm chase on the vast cellphone network deficient great plains. I'm uniquely both a critic and cheerleader for this technology. I've made my own observations videos and photographs of the Starlink train. I've also seen several youtubers unknowingly spread some misinformation or give some misdirected fearmongering. You sir, have done a fantastic job here of explaining the impact not as apocalypse but as another problem to work around. In fact you're really quite close in a few areas to the script I'm working on for a Starlink video specific to Astrophotography. I'm very optimistic that this won't be as big of a deal in the end, and in fact might even be a net gain for Astronomers. Besides, I think they would be happy to send future black hole images via Starlink, rather than shipping hard drives to each other! ;)
Oh great, thanks! Let me know when your episode is out and I'll help you get the word out.
@@frasercain Also, Elon has mentioned they may de-orbit some of these satellites early once they settle on a technology for limiting their visibility. That way ones without the tech would not be in the air for the next 5 years. With the number they plan on putting up in just the next two years, replacing a few hundred doesn't seem to be an issue to him.
@@frasercain That would be awesome! I'll post it here in a couple weeks. Trying to get more Starlink footage.
@@scienceoutthere Do you think that we can get rid of the satellites with software by merging burst shoots pictures together instead of taking one long exposure?
John theux absolutely. That’s actually one of the subjects I want to tackle. Multiple sub exposures can increase your signal to noise ratio. Using the right technique you can ignore Planes. Meteors. Satellites. They can all be filtered out even if hypothetically every sub exposure contains this kind of “noise”. With sensors getting better, shorter more frequent subs might actually be much better than just taking as long of exposures as possible.
Imagine if you just bought a 10.000$ telescope just to see some routers flying around earth.
As someone who works in Geodetic VLBI something people forget when saying "just move the telescopes to space" is not all the work that telescopes do on the ground can be done in space. Our high tech world relies on these ground based telescopes more then you might think. GPS and similar systems use ground based telescope observations that go into the earth orientation parameters because they use a network of telescopes around the whole planet looking at the same sources to then determine each telescopes relative position to the others. This impacts still more as I don't think many people connect GPS to time but at the core of GPS like systems is time and many things rely on those systems to get their precise time values. I think many people think of astronomy as a bit removed from out lives and that the telescopes while important are just science things that don't impact us every day. However systems we use and society relies on GPS (or similar systems) and UT1-UTC (time) which need telescopes and their observations.
Yup, even if SpaceX could provide everyone with a free ride for their telescope to space, many people couldn't afford the kind of telescope that would work best in space.
@@frasercain People wouldn't have to afford anything if SpaceX provided them. How much would a Hubble equivalent cost these days? Surely they can be made much cheaper now that the tech is well understood? Maybe even smaller and not as powerful? How many mini-Hubble's could you launch on a single Falcon 9? I know the expense would be significant but the fact is there's no going back and by that I mean in general when it comes to technology, we cannot go back, only forward. We can't afford to be thinking "what if we lose network capability and have to go back to using glass" ... if it comes to that astronomy will be the least of our worries. No, we should really only look forward and if there are going to be massive numbers of satellites in low orbits then the best thing to do is put lot of telescopes out beyond them and make them available for people to use - a range of them for astronomers at various levels in their careers and perhaps the cheapest opened up for public use. Have an AI do the scheduling.
I don't think anyone is talking about GPS on this matter. The concerns are all about unobstructed viewing of the sky, which is not helped by having huge GPS satellites in orbit.
@@alflud "How much would a Hubble equivalent cost these days?" Telescopes are light buckets. Hubble's mirror is a bit bigger than a typical house's floor-to-ceiling height. You can't redo Hubble with a 1 meter mirror, although you probably could do some new stuff with a gang of 1 meter telescopes in orbit.
@@alflud I think hundreds of smaller satellite telescopes working together as one would be great. Especially if anyone can get online and look at things look at the heavens live.
Thank you Fraser.
We were talking about this today at work, in the conference room. Your video, is very timely.
This helps to answer a lot of questions, that we had.
Thanks! Let me know if you have any others. :-)
@@frasercain Did you know that you can engage in amateur astronomy with your hands literally bound behind your back?
If our skies have to be downgraded to enable global internet, the revenue from it might as well go to SpaceX who is interested in advancing the case for space, rather than some soulless telecom megacorp.
its part of the reason people are depressed and stupid these days. the majority of people cant look at the stars in cities anymore. never again looking up in wonder.
and btw, if u don't think starlink will turn into a souless telecom megacorp?... what's stopping them? Elon is just "a good guy"? he's another billionaire
This is only the beginning
Do our skies have to be downgraded to enable global internet though? What if Elon is just being ostentatious again? He's such a space lad.
@@FriedEgg101 he should send himself t mars and stay there, take Bezos with him
So in other words you want trade one soulless megacorp for another. Because you think SpeceX is doing out the bottom of there hearts. And its really nice to pollute the night sky so you can save a few bucks and some rich authoritarian in Africa can watch German Porn.
You foolish little nincumpoop.... all these corporations serve the same masters...
Omg, space based observatories don’t fix this... Millions of people all over the world study astronomy using long exposure astrophotography from their back yards. This affects them too. Taking away the ability to study astronomy from the average person would negatively impact the field in a huge way.
I know Frazier touched lightly on the “space telescope” point, but a whole crap load of commenters seemed to have missed it, and think science is only done at large observatories.
That's why I specifically addressed this in the video. And I know people are still going to think it's as easy as "just launch more space telescopes".
I think that we can get rid of the satellites with software by merging burst shoots pictures together instead of taking one long exposure. What do you think?
Or it might attract millions more people if we can get online with a huge mega constellation of telescope satellites linked together as one and look into deep space having control of your own zoom in. It would allow thousands to observe whatever they want whenever they want. Ground based telescopes will be so low resolution it will be looked at like VHS is now.
@@frasercain Well.. if space X did launch say 60 "amateur" sized free to use space telescopes. I don't think anyone would complain... oh well perhaps they would.
NGneer I DO see that space-based internet constellations WILL adversely effect terrestrial astronomy, but I believe the expected net gain to science and education is VASTLY greater than that loss. It’s SO not even close. I’d wager even the field of astrophysics will gain more from Starlink’s existence over the next 20 yrs than it would from squashing it to “protect the night sky.”
It’s a slam dunk case, IMO; BUT that doesn’t mean we should implement these networks without doing our reasonable best to preserve what we can. I’m glad to hear SpaceX appears to be sensitive to the issues Starlink is bringing up.
What also damages astronomy is cities. How many cites turn off their lights to help astronomers? Zero. How many of you turn off your lights at night to reduce light pollution or turn off your router and your Cell phone when you go to bed to help reduce pollution on the microwave bands? None of you.
It's good that SpaceX is trying to take steps to reduce their impact on science, but in the end the burden is going to fall on astronomers to work around Starlink as best they can.
As I type this 60% of the world's population including tens of millions of my fellow Americans do not have internet access. The top reason these BILLIONS of people lack access is the infrastructure to connect them does not exist. Thanks to Starlink that is about to change and that benefit to humanity is quite honestly more important than the damage it may do to astronomy even if the worst case scenario comes to pass.
''humanity'' is just u.s and canada...
@@xgozulx Well Humanity includes the US and Canada...Though I'm not too sure about those filthy Canadians :)
It is shocking that this problem was not foreseen and prevented.
It was foreseen, it was just ignored.
Welcome to capitalism. Everything in capitalism works this way.
Great point.
The main driving factor is *not* some huge amount of people without internet, but huge amount of money from selling more of internet.
The same could be said about building new fossil fuel power plants, even after the consequences became obvious. People are notoriously short-sighted when the prize is sufficiently large, and when they can push the costs onto someone else.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
The sad truth is that most people do not really care about the night sky. The only thing they would miss if all objects disappeared from the night sky would be the Moon. Many, if not most people, do not even know the basics of astronomy, like knowing what the largest planet in the Solar System, the nearest planet to Earth, the nearest star, nearest galaxy and so on, let alone more complex things like gravitational waves, quasars, neutron stars, gamma ray bursts and so on. The view of the night sky May be damaged or destroyed for centuries or thousands of years to come, and no one really wants to prevent it, apart from astronomers, who make up a minuscule fraction of society.
Also, if people really cared about the night sky, then more would have Been done by now to address light pollution from the ground. And since most people do not care about ground light pollution, they certainly will not care about the view of telescopes being polluted by satellites.
I don't want to come across as completely unkind about this, but I don't think that we should take astronomy into account when we're talking about these types of satellite constellation projects.
Don't get me wrong, I love astronomy & I think it's a very important science. But I think that this is a question of civilization, & that we're getting to the point where Earth is no place for astronomy in exactly the same way that downtown Manhattan is no place for astronomy.
It's good to build cities. It's good to build satellite constellations. & It's just fundamentally good to push the frontiers of humanity out as far as we can & improve standard of life as much as we can for the average person.
Imho, astronomy needs to move further out in the solar system, or maybe even onto the moon for the time being.
We need to be brave when we're taking these first steps towards becoming an interplanetary species. It's going to change a lot for us, & it's going to upset a lot of industries -- but it's also ultimately the only way I can see us having a sustainable civilization for the foreseeable future. Earth alone just isn't enough for us anymore.
Astronomy is only one of the problems. There's also the potential for something to smash into one of these starlink satellites and start a chain reaction of smashed satellites. Space junk catastrophe on a scale that could stop space exploration for a very long time. If the goal is to become an interplanetary species then clogging our space with junk is a very bad idea. We've got plenty of space junk as it is without adding potentially 42000 satellites to it.
@@gforce833 What you're describing is called the Kessler syndrome, & imho serious fears about it usually miss two fundamental things: the vastness of space, & the fact that the bulk of our satellites are in low earth orbit, which means they're not going to stay up in orbit for the thousands upon thousands of years proposed -- more realistically, most of them are going to fall to earth in days, weeks, or months.
Ask yourself this: how many bottle nose dolphins could you fit into the oceans? Afaik, there are about 600,000 alive today, but there could definitely be more, right? Especially if we weren't fishing all of their food.
The volume of the oceans is 1.35 billion cubic km. The volume of Low Earth orbit alone is 1.3 trillion cubic km. And most satellites are smaller than dolphins.
If you expand to all other orbits out to geostationary, the volume becomes incomprehensibly vast. We could have many orders of magnitude more satellites in operation without causing Kessler Syndrome -- especially with increasingly sophistocated AI tracking systems, & our burgeoning ability to recover space debris.
@@gforce833 The Starlink constellation is in such a low orbit that the satellites naturally deorbit within 5 years, so it's about as favourable as you'll get in regards to space debris. I do agree however that Kessler syndrome from other factors is a real concern, so hopefully we'll see companies focusing on clearing up space debris in the near future.
@@gforce833 agreed on all points with Dr. Zoidberg. To repeat, albeit a lot more brief: the density of satellites in orbit is simply so low that a catastrophic chain reaction is extremely unlikely to happen.
@@dr.zoidberg8666 And what do you say about the lives of those people living and working on the space station that could be affected catastrophically by debris from some issue with these constellation satellites even if it de-orbits in days. Still plenty of time for it to rip through the space station.
I would be in favor of this IF it provided free internet for everybody
It won't.
Free? Loll. I am ok with affordable and reliable. Not a freeloader.
@@rikinpatelvfs the same way GPS is free
@@fep_ptcp883 ahahaha you are dumber than a rock. GPS was invented by The US Air Force through the use of public money. Everyone paid for it in terms of taxes. Next time do some research and don't make a fool of yourself on the internet.
@@rikinpatelvfs I don’t think you get it. He’s saying that it’s not free
What I think about Starlink? What does it matter? Musk and his billions make my thoughts irrelevant.
Can Starlink be done with fewer satellites? And can satellite internet company not share their satellites? Can the latter thing be done in future with some kind of legislation?
You could probably have less satellites but they'd be more expensive, bigger and brighter.
That amount of satellites look crazy to me. How is this not going to cause a huge problem with space junk? With every company wanting to have their own constellation of thousands of satellites, the total number can get very large. What happens if even a small % of that satellites get unresponsive and collide with others?
Why does it matter what color the sat is? They darkened it but when it passes between your scope and your target, it will still block light. Regardless of their color, it would still cause problems, right?
No, if it's darkened it'll be pretty much invisible to your telescope. The actual size is incredibly small in your field of view.
@@frasercain Depend of what you call black. The moon is black for example... you need vantablack or something even better.
A question not related to Starlink, but something that has been talked about many times.
Q. If it was possible to warm Mars and subsequently release gases locked up in the crust into the atmosphere and to have liquid water so it was say at a coolish day on Earth, say 0C to 5C, then how long would it be before those gases and surface water were eroded by the solar wind, sublimated away etc? I have heard people say that if Mars released all its Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (amongst other gases.) that it would be pointless as it would get blown away in a thousand years, others have said longer others maybe a bit less. But surely even if it lasted only five hundred years that is still a long time for a colony to get settled and develop the science of terraforming to fix it or come up with another solution. Especially given the progress we have made here on Earth in the last two hundred years, I mean what could another five hundred or even a thousand years of technological advances bring if they keep going at the current rate. No body expects looks at those time scales for something we build or manufacture on Earth to last five hundred to a thousand years without maintenance and/or upgrades or replacement, so why is this time scale on Mars Pooh-Poohed in such a way?
Or would an atmosphere get eroded as quickly as it could be released making it a futile effort in the first place?
Thank You for your answer.
500 million years.
Hey Fraser, question. If you made an extremely long, unbreakable (for the sake of discussion) stick and spun it around you with the force and speed necessary for the tip to reach the speed of light, what physical phenomenon would stop it from happening? Would the stick become impossible to move? Would the tip fall behind the rest of the stick creating a spiral? Would it become light?
Assuming the stick can't bend, as the end of the stick approaches the speed of light, you'd need an amount of energy approaching infinity to turn it any faster.
My perspective: what if the future of space exploration is trapped inside the brain of someone that can't afford Internet? There are tons of internships and programs with online applications that I only know about through resources like facebook and Twitter. Who are we to deny them access for the sake of ground based astronomy? Besides, more people care about astronomy than ever before because of access to online knowledge
2400$ a year between service fees and electricity isn't exactly affordable for those people.
I don't really buy that ''internet for the poor'' argument..
Poor people will not be the ones paying for Starlink services, I think.
It's profit for Elon Musk and share holders.
The point is that you can set up one receiver in the middle of a small town in the middle of anywhere and be able to supply wifi. Even my parents struggle to connect to the internet because the infrastructure is so terrible in Canada. They're about 20 kilometers away from me. I get 600 mb/s. They get 1 on a good day and no cell service.
You would be surprised. One of the reasons they can supply low cost internet service is because they have a massive advantage over previous and some future satellite providers, because they can launch much cheaper, on the order of over 10 times cheaper, than other satellite based ISP's, due to their reusable rocket technology and the fact they own the launch technology, they don't have to contract it, so can do it at cost rather than a major markup.
"Vera Rubin telescope"
Aww hell yeah, it's about time.
"formerly the LSST"
Aww damn, we didn't actually get another cool telescope. It was just a rebranding. That's fine, but a new telescope would have been even cooler.
It's a great name, but yeah, it's still the LSST. :-)
They really should put a moratorium on future launches till the technology for non-reflective satellites can be developed. I have seen the Starlink choo-choo train fly overhead, and as an amateur astrophotographer all I can say is it makes me sick to my stomach.
Could starlink eventually pay for a space telescope?
One of the main purposes of the operation is to fund a colony on Mars. That would be such a massive step forward for humanity, I think we can forgive any slight to moderate inconvenience it would cause in other areas.
Sure, in theory, it could pay for lots of them. But when did transportation companies give things away for free?
@@frasercain they don't but maybe they could help set up a funding project
it will be taxed
Fraser,
As a huge fan of astronomy and frequent user of the internet, I hope we can reach a reasonable compromise when it comes to mega constellations. Overall, it seems like astronomers and SpaceX are being reasonable and the working together on this front. I hope we can take the lessons learned from TMT to address this situation.
I am worried that the behavior of certain people in our community will be detrimental to our goals. In the AAS press conference on mega constellations, a member of the audience compared astronomers' response to Starlink with Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler, with Hitler being Elon Musk. I don't want to create more toxicity by naming names but I'm pretty sure you know who I'm talking about. He has also written several articles for a major news website demanding that SpaceX deorbit several hundred million dollars worth of satellites and refrain from launching any more. This sense of entitlement makes us look bad, like we haven't learned anything from TMT.
He also criticized SpaceX for not using common sense and just making the satellites darker (this doesn't work because it makes infrared radiation worse), along with making other misleading claims. This has the effect of polarizing people. Some certainly share his outrage, but many others have expressed counter outrage, pointing out inaccuracies and telling astronomers to stop whining or criticizing them for opposing internet access for the three billion humans that still don't have it. Neither of these opposing viewpoints are helpful to our cause. One makes us look bad, while the other completely dismisses our legitimate concerns.
Thank you for your nuanced take on this controversial subject here and on astronomy cast. This is the kind of good reporting that we need. If SpaceX abandons their efforts to mitigate the impact of Starlink on astronomy and if they don't improve access to the internet for those who need it, then we can get out our pitchforks. For now though, I think the diplomatic approach we have been taking is the right approach.
What annoyes me most, is the fact that a single US authority grants a license to an US corp., that affects the whole world with a negative impact! Thank you, America!
PostFapShame is legendary
Everyone gunning at SpaceX and Starlink, but truth is, satelite constellations will be the norm in the near future. So yes, it is a sad time for Earth based astronomers, but this is inevitable. Starlink is not to blame, this is just natural progression. You will find ways to overcome this..., but instead of throwing your toys out the cot, why not work with Starlink. Communicate with them. Elon Musk is not unreasonable, and i you work together, you will get the best possible solution . Throwing mud and accusations and tantrums, will get you NOTHING.
Instead of clogging the skies, we make our elected officials hold ISP providers accountable for the money given them years ago by taxpayer money to upgrade the internet all over the country. We give these companies millions in corporate welfare and they give bonuses. How much is Elon paying for using the Cape to launch his rockets. Remember when the internet was first introduced...I do and they said it would change the world yet some people in first world America have no access to the internet today. Technology may help with the means of changing society but until the masses are demanding change....business as usual.
I'll only tolerate SpaceX's incompetence if their service is free and socialized
idk about the free part, especially since you would still need some sort of router, the satellite isn't gonna be some wifi account you can link to.
It won’t be free.
My internet has been seriously slowed after some undersea cables broke. Starlink would be a blessing right now!
I have a maximum of 5 Mbps download. There's thousands of households within 30 miles of me that have absolutely no access to any internet.(except current satellite internet) I don't live in the boonies either. I'm within 45 miles of about 6 cities with over 50,000 population and two with over 100,000.
It would be prudent to protect our skies to a greater latitude than we have our land via national park systems. Space junk is disheartening!
Yeah, we need a better policy now, before the problem gets worse.
Will it be worth it to even build larger earth based telescopes like Magellan or the TMT at this point if mitigation solutions fail or end up being sub-optimal ? Would the time and money be better spent on other ways of getting some of this data with SpaceX kicking with at LEAST free launching of anything involving space based telescope systems from anyone affected by the existence of these constellations.
There's still huge value in building these huge ground-based observatories, they're just going to be able to do less science.
@@frasercain So a lot more data clean up and fewer photons to work with but worth it then. I'll buy that for a dollar.
Having 12000 satelites for internet in 2020 seems very unadvanced and poor. The Iridium satellites had provided a global satellite telecomunication with just 70 satellites back in 1997.
Thats tv not internet totally different
It may be bad for astronomy, but I love that we live at a time where we can see something like this
But it's only a matter of time before the novelty of "space trains" wears off. Then what are we left with?
charjl space trains?
@@TasX Don't worry about it
@@charjl96 We will end up with maps and globes that not only have vertical and horizontal lines but also diagonal
Did spacex need government permission to launch all these satellites into orbit? How does that whole legal process work in terms of putting things in orbit for these private companies?
They needed permission from the US government for safety and communications regulations, but not for the impact on astronomy.
My issue with Starlink is the ease of putting satellites in the sky without any restrictions. I mean; after SpaceX and Amazon put their constellations up, what will stop Apple from putting their own satellite constellation up there for their iPhones? And when Apple does something like that, Samsung and Nokia and other phone companies will soon follow of course. If it is not phone companies, then it will definitely be countries who do not trust American companies to administrate all the internet communications via satellites. My point is that there should be an organisation regulating this, like the UN or NATO, but there isn't or won't be until it is too late...
The BRICs don't listen to NATO, and the UN has no teeth. The odds of this changing in a useful time scale are somewhere between fat and slim.
Somehow it doesn't seem too difficult to develop an algorithm to filter out unwanted streaks. I'd guess they already have a light version of that right now. And there's always AI since that seems to be popular these days. But I don't think it's a good idea at all to put that many satellites in orbit, even more so when multiple companies will be involved. You'll never replace sea and land fiber cables with this technology.
This is already done by astronomy software. Astronomers already remove airplanes and satellite trails, they'll just have to do more of it.
I love those new ground based telescopes and inky black skies. But I love my internet even more! Go Starlink!
It's going to be a tricky balancing act...
First, I don't understand why people find it so hard to spot satelittes or other objects in orbit with their eyes, and why they can't tell the difference to aircraft - once I noticed them there are LOTS of them all the time. I don't have particularly good eye sight or anything but I'm regularly seeing several objects a few minute period when I look up...but thats usually while kayaking or hiking in Denmark or Sweden, a ways north and with sun not very low under horizon.
Second, does software exist that can compensate for satelitte streaks? Depending on how the telescopes work I could imagine "simply" having a E to W overflight taken out of the image by dynamically running a S to N blind band across the data as it comes in. If done right wouldn't it be possible to leave the exposure even everywhere and just copmpensating by adding a small amount of extra time at the end, say. If it's possible and does not exist, would SpaceX get absolution from their "crimes agains astronomy" if THEY took the chance to get that software made?
They should take burst shots instead of long exposure shots. Then use a temporal filter to merge the images together.
Even with the full 42,000 Starlink satellites up there, they are in no way near to covering a millionth of the area of the sky. It seems to me that precision can be our friend here. If we have millisecond and meter precision of where each satellite is and the precision for where and when we take our images, we can programmatically mask our images against the bright intrusions. Multiple shorter images will lead to shorter streaks and smaller masking loss. We just need to know where (and when) to apply our propane-tank shaped masks and how big to make them. If astronomers had live internet and a little bit of smart software almost complete mitigation would be possible. Plus, the more live the data, the further upstream the masking can happen at which would be highly desirable. Perhaps Space-X can help with that connectivity and software issue. :-) Space-X/Starlink are the astronomer's friends, stinky friends, but friends nevertheless. I find it encouraging that things are starting out in the spirit of understanding and cooperation. I hope that keeps up. (I bet it will. :-) )
Astronomers use hour-long exposures to get acceptable signal to noise ratio. Especially when imaging very faint objects, that is pretty much a requirement.
@@PepsiMagt Image stacking is not beyond the capability of modern amateur astronomers and such tech actually can help with dealing with second-by-second variance in the optical qualities of the atmosphere. I know there are technical demands from aggressive stacking including the noise you get from taking any picture, no longer how short the exposure is. It seems to me that pushing that to its limit combined with creative, perhaps even live physical masking, could do the job. Yes, I know this sounds a bit silly, but what if an astronomer had a single or flock of opaque drones (no lights on of course) the size of their aperture or bigger flying overhead at just the right path to mask the light from known satellites. That could actually be done and there may be much better options like a dark masking spot that can be moved around right in front of the CCD. (or any other kind of detector involved) It's all a matter of knowing what's up there, where, and when with great precision and making the best of that live data. The days of exposing silver coated plates of glass may be over but we still have options. :-)
@@PepsiMagt I would call the idea I'm trying to express "active masking" or "adaptive masking" or something like that. :-)
Yeah yeah, but image stacking won't work with hour-long exposures. Taking multiple shorter exposures ruins your signal to noise ratio.
@@PepsiMagt I hear you. You know your equipment, but there clearly are those who are taking very short stacked images and using them to compensate for atmospheric variance. (not deep sky?) Perhaps better detectors that run at a colder temperature to reduce noise. The shorter the individual shot, the smaller the mask has to be even if the s/n ratio goes up. (a phenomenon partially compensated for by stacking, averaging out some of the noise) Somewhere in the middle seems best with shorter exposures becoming the trend as detectors improve. ...and if that can't be worked out there is still hope for physical masking for narrower FOV shots. I agree, though, this will be a challenging nut to crack. :-)
Wouldn't a free online space based telescope be more convenient and efficient. Make it sooo!
It would be tough to match the capability of Earth-based telescopes. But if Musk is offering free launches, I'm sure they'll take him up on it.
Even assuming that starlink naked-eye visibility is greatly reduced in operation I've gotta assume that satellites ploughing through the frame of active astronomical observations reflecting ANY solar radiation off their surfaces would destroy/swamp the sensitive spectroscopic observations of large telescopes?
Do current observatories have to shutter their instruments for known satellite "occultations" of their observation target? It would surely suck-didley-uck to have a multi hour observation of a distant galaxy's spectra ruined by a few seconds of sol's light reflected down onto the spectrometer.
With 40,000 satellites up there instead of 3000 currently, future telescopes are going to have a very busy schedule avoiding this light "pollution"!
I don't think any actively avoid satellites right now, there aren't enough passes. But they'll need to be more active about it in the future.
The real problem is that the ability to reliably detect dangerous, near earth objects like asteroids will be lost if the sky becomes saturated by thousands of small satellites.
All of these objects are currently detected and mapped by many thousands of ground based astronomers around the world, many of them amateurs.
By observing and mapping the orbits of these objects we can project the likelihood of them colliding with the earth in the future, which may give us enough warning to prevent this from happening.
The potential dangers of these objects cannot be exaggerated, the dinosaurs were wiped out by a relatively small six mile wide asteroid and this will almost certainly happen again in the future.
There are probably a very large number of these objects that we don't know about which is why a clear view of the sky is vital as we are discovering new ones on an almost daily basis.
If you think that this is unlikely just think about the Chelyabinsk meteor in 2013. It came out of nowhere and exploded high in the atmosphere with the energy of around 30 Hiroshima bombs. It was only around 18 meters in diameter and fortunately for us was of a fairly weak composition.
Had it been of a harder type like iron based it would have probably made it down to the ground with that sort of energy.
I live in a rural area with very limited internet options. (1.5-2.5mbs)
I'll be signing up asap.
@Christiaan Baron sats are only visible to the naked eye just after sunset and just before sunrise. Stop overreacting.
@@joshb8302 this is not just about seeing them in the naked eye there are millions of people do amateur/hobbyist and professional astrophotography that don't that will get affected
Amazing video about all aspects of the case.
Thank you, good work. Please never stop!
I always thought this was purely an argument from an aesthetics perspective, I never realised just how much damage (in some cases quite literally physical damage to things)
Thanks for bringing info to light Fraser. I still believe this is for the greater good for mankind though. Glad that Elon/SpaceX are working with people on a compromise.
Edit: format
It's going to be both good and bad, and requires both parties to continue working together.
Yea I don't really see how any physical damage can occur. I think someone got a wire crossed. Even a super-powerful radio source is still just going to get clipped/saturated at the LNA stage. Once you are at the cause physical damage part, its more like kW at meters aways. This is not credible from a satellite.
Hey Fraser love you show question what if your area you have bad weather or just some sort of weather when that block the signal from the satellites
They should be able to communicate through bad weather, but I'm not sure the exact transmission band they're using.
Cant they put telescopes in northern russia, canada or the around the poles?
The problem actually gets worse the closer you get to the poles since the satellites are visible for their entire path across the sky.
@@frasercain thanks
Would not disagree with astronomers being upset...those things have been up there so long just blocking the stargazing and still do not provide global internet service or any function really
Not sure if this is any consolation to astronomy, but In terms of interference with astronomy, in the very long term (100 years) it should not be too concerning. At the current rate of internet growth, IoT etc... systems like Starlink won't scale well and will be ultimately obsolete due to cost. Everything will eventually have to be covered with terrestrial optical fiber, WiFi WLAN and 5G WAN. The evolution of internet for people has been towards higher data rates and hence terrestrial networks evolved towards higher tower density for higher speed broadband coverage. StarLink is going in the opposite direction. Plus the StarLink ground system is not mobile, it's only a fixed "pizza box" terminal, not a phone like Iridium or GlobalStar, and it's relatively high cost. Astronomers will have to figure out how do deal with it in the short term, and in the long term Starlink can be forgotten entirely, as it will be replaced with terrestrial systems.
They said they expect 3-5% of earth population to use it.
@@johntheux9238 It won't be enough. As soon as economy improves such that poor people get access to 50kbps, they will need more.
@@irrationalpie3143 It's not about poor people but about rural areas. Then starlink will allow Gb/s speeds.
Sure, you can get Gbps speeds for demo / marketing purposes when the satellite only has to communicate to a single user in one location without steering. The issue is that each satellite only has one very narrow beamwidth downlink beam (technically 2 beams, LCHP & RCHP, but really one) that it must steer over the entire coverage area. This hopping of the beam cuts the bandwidth significantly, and is not ideal for a lot of reasons. In terms of overall economics of the system, only spaceX has all the numbers to evaluate it properly. In my personal opinion, in a 100 years, Starlink will likely not be attractive, as the terrestrial based systems will provide coverage at lower cost to more remote locations and users.
@@irrationalpie3143 It will use beamforming to prevent interferences. For example 5G should handle one million users per square kilometer. Starlink only need a tiny bit of that.
Instead of a cost of 2 billion per launch of Artemis with the SLS, wouldn't it be better to make three or four launches of Falcon Heavy, at 90 million each, with some assembly and refueling in orbit?
I'm happy that SpaceX is actually working with the astronomy community to find a solution for this.
Since it is evident that the satellites are the way to go, i hope a feasible solution is found to this problem.
I really do not agree with sacrificing our skies for this. There should be a way.
Not really: "My takeaway is that SpaceX is giving lip service to wanting to work with astronomers but actually doesn’t, based on the Q and A session." twitter.com/RPMAstronomy/status/1215022634473156608
The projected number of Starlink satellites is now over 4,000.
Do most observatories take single long exposure images where a satellite can ruin hours of work? Or do they combine multiple short exposure images, where (I guess) filtering is just a problem that can be solved by software? Does the single long exposure have an advantage, e.g. in image quality?
That's exactly what I am thinking, temporal filtering can achieve miracles for denoising. You just need to do the same for pictures.
ua-cam.com/video/7MV26bOSAyk/v-deo.html
All observatories use very long exposures, from minutes up to hours. If you use multiple shirt exposures then your signal to noise ratio plummets.
@@PepsiMagt Look at this: ua-cam.com/video/7MV26bOSAyk/v-deo.html
If you can do it with video you can do it with burst shot pictures.
@@PepsiMagt I initially thought about noise as something that would build up over time, proportional to the build up of the signal. Like background radiation. But with what you said, it hints towards a constant noise component in each image, which would add up the more images you have. Makes sense, there's certainly at least some constant noise caused by how the sensors work.
@@johntheux9238 but there are no burst shot pictures with long exposures. If you only get a frame every other hour, then there is little to be done in postprocessing.
Nice 2001 reference.
well maybe now they'll finally stop building telescopes on mauna kea, it's a sacred mountain to some of the locals and astronomers keep stepping on their feet. maybe now they'll know how it feels to be treated so ignorantly. also aren't we better off with space-based telescopes anyways in the long run? adaptive optics are nice and all, but that can't fix clouds.
i would say look at what Starlink in going to be funding once it is operational...i mean would you say it was worth it if we could launch LUVOIR in say 5 years?
I think Starlink is going to be funding missions to Mars, but one side benefit would be to help launch space telescopes on Starships.
Hi Fraser - Will the Starship and Superheavy booster always use welded rings or are there plans to make a giant fabricator to make it all in one piece to alleviate the need for welding? Thanks.
If starlink allows Starship to become a reality I believe it will be worth it. At the moment space based telescopes like James Webb are so expensive due to the complexity of folding a large mirror into a small payload fairing. If Starship becomes a reality we could basically launch multiple unfolded James Webb size telescopes in a single mission. Or a huge scaled up version of the James Webb telescope. It will likely also have the ability to recover and repair telescopes even in far out orbits like the James Webb telescope will be as the Starship will have the DeltaV to make it to Mars. In the short term it will have a negative effect on ground based space observations but in the long term it will have a game changing effect on the cost and ease of space based telescopes.
Why dont you astronommers dont do astronomy at the dawn and dusk just do it in night.internet is more important than astronomy we can do it with space telescope
Look at this: ua-cam.com/video/vZiUsNQiJ1I/v-deo.html
If you are on the equator starlink is not an issue at all. If you are not then it is an issue in summer or in winter depending of where you are. (which hemisphere)
At 52 degrees latitude the satellite will be visible and sunlit all through the night in the summer.
If only space telescopes are as affordable as landbased telescopes that an average amateur astronommers are able to buy one and also have enough money to launch them to space
What about moon based telescopes?
Are there any inconveniences? (except the obvious that will be dealt with in the future like price...)
There wouldn't be an inconvenience from Starlink.
@@frasercain oh, I just realized, if we get to the point we can put telescopes on the moon, it probably had it's own communication satellite constellation by then anyway...
So. we put up all this internet stuff. and miss the asteroid that is coming to hit us.
We don't NEED these satalites, we have cables on the ground that are much much faster, and cheaper, but Elon has his foot in the door on cheap space launches, and he doesn't care about astronomy so....
I know you want fast internet in the middle of nowhere, but if it comes at the cost of the night sky, is it worth it? no.
I prefer satellites being visible, all 42,000 of them . Astronomers should get a telescopes in space .
I would like less lag when I play online games.
I think this'll turn out to be like the Y2K problem. Lots of huff and scary stories in the media while it quietly gets fixed in the background before it becomes a major problem.
I thought that the Y2K problem was solved by Jon Titor the time traveler ;)
@@user-earthandfire "Jon Titor" A troll whose existence I was unaware of until now.
@@Markle2k well now you are aware.
possibly the Internets first troll?
........possibly ;)
9:52 Right now we need a dish to connect to Starlink. I assume that advances in technology will bring that dish down in size, so we can incorporate into a smartphone. If that can be realized the merits would be tremendous.
No more internet censorship in countries that cover the reality with propaganda.
No more blank spots anywhere on the planet.
No more unnecessary delays in rescue operations, because we don't know where the victims are.
The advantages are ginormous.
I just hope there will be a way for astronomy to continue their valuable work. Ground based telescope have been instrumental for countless invaluable breakthroughs in our understanding of space. Loosing their persistent work for humanity would be an unacceptable loss.
Your "dish" is actually a flat phased-array. You might get some functionality out of a small antenna on a cell phone size device, but you would probably still be connecting to a cell tower with a Starlink antenna as the node. Aircraft of commercial size could probably host a Starlink antenna.
@@Markle2k I made an off the cuff comment more in the hope this would be possible some day. Since I'm not really familiar with the technology, do you think we will never be able to get down to a smartphone being able to connect to the Starlink or similar constellation?
@@machelvet9594 Yes, it is basically physically impossible However, it isn't impossible that your phone could not connect to a tower in the middle of Africa without it needing any more than a power plug.. You are removing the need for a fiber cable to that tower.
@@Markle2k you need to study up on the new satellite "cellphone towers" that's close to being launched. They'll work with current smartphones. They already have a few prototypes in orbit. Verizon and AT&T are already testing them to incorporate into their Network
There's a better article somewhere. I don't have time to find it right now
www.theverge.com/2019/8/2/20746947/ubiquitilink-satellite-cell-tower-space-mega-constellation
@@Markle2k So let's say you wanted Internet in North Korea and you had only a smart phone, you would still need some sort of tower or ground based station to connect to Starlink? There is no way to connect a smart phone directly to Starlink?
I know it's not possible now, but even in the future? It's a question of how far the reach of the phone is, right?
To quote @Astro_Jonny and the article he posted on Scientific American...
"So, a story I've been working on...
The FCC may have wrongly ignored US environmental law in approving SpaceX's Starlink mega constellation (and other satellites). Were it to be sued, it would likely lose."
So while regulators have approved launches, that may not necessarily stay that way, depending on who might sue SpaceX.
SpaceX was "surprised" at the brightness of the satellites, but not surprised enough to stop launching more satellites in order to figure it out, apparently. I'm pissed at oligarchs pissing over everything like they own it.
Yeah, I saw that. It came out right after we recorded this. 😀
I certainly hope that Amazon and OneWeb follow Spacex's lead in working with astronomers to come up with a solution.
Humanity and new exponential technologies do not have to shape and morph around astronomy. Astronomy on other other hand needs to reinvent itself and work around this. I'm sorry, but when we're talking about net benefit to humanity, cheap global access to fast internet beats studying the night sky from earth.
Nate the great but noone will get cheap fast global access to the internet. It’s just marketing bs by Elon Musk.
Very good video.
NightSkyMatters
Fraser if there was an artificial satellite around a planet in another solar system, what methods could we use to detect it?
I'm not sure we could distinguish between a natural and artificial satellite of the same mass unless the artificial satellite is blasting out energy or something. Basically, we won't know unless the beings that made it _want_ us to see it. And until all explanations that don't involve aliens have been ruled out, don't invoke aliens. So unless they make it _deliberately_ to look artificial, we're not going to spot it from outside the system with any technology currently available or known to be in the pipeline.
so astronomers follow existing satellites and it works. but what, spacex satelites can't be followed or what? stop whining and do the job for god sakes
shoot, I was too fast, Fraser mentioned tracking staff
Yeah, so you'll be able to avoid the satellites if there are only a few but eventually there'll be too many to avoid them all.
Listening to Fraser say “post fap shame” made this whole video worth it!
I figured it would.
Vantablack on the shiny bits (minus solar panels).
They are painted white to avoid overheating in direct sunlight.
How about covering them in retroreflectors so they always bounce incoming sunlight back at the sun and not at us?
Ellon is a Genius, BUT ! This is really a bad think in my (humble) point of vue. It gonna be a pain in the you know what for the astronomers to have to deal with all those trails on them pictures. And I do not feel confortable to have thousand of satellites polluting our night sky. Space is one of the latest pure place, why not let it pristine ?
But its not pure. It already has 1000s of satellites and space junk.
@@GregEwing For sure ...
I hope star link fails it’s already hard enough to look at a pristine night sky these days.
You won't be able to see them without a telescope. But if they do fail, that means more cell phone towers, and 5G antennas.
It would be shame to get hit by an asteroid that could have been detected in time if it wasn't for all the obstructive light pollution.
What kind of light pollution do you think these are going to do? It is not going to make the night day!
@@GregEwing I have no idea ,but I have no idea how little it would take it to make a difference .I was only asking in response to the post to comment about it .any information would be great ty
@@MyKharli It will not make any difference to detecting asteroids that light pollution, the moon and yea the Sun don't already do.
@@GregEwing do you know that or think that ? I cannot find a link saying the subjects been studied properly , but lots saying astronomers worried unless more space based observatories funded .
Humans have always tended to look short term and politicians who advocate that humans should look longer term rarely get elected. For problems like emissions to be solved or even getting close to be solved human nature will have to change. I am afraid, though, that is one thing that will never happen. Making money and large profits have always been a priority over concerns about the impact of making that money and those profits, no matter how serious or inconvenient that impact may turn out to be.
Hi Fraser.
I have a question: If I want to bring a several thousands tonn Ice rock from Saturn to Earth, to process it for fuel on earths orbit, and I have the tech and infrastructure for it, will this rock survive the trip to earth? How fast will the water sublimate? obviously bigger rocks will survive better, but according to logic, there should be some sort of minimal size of Ice, that under this size there is no point carrying it to Earths orbit?
The faster you move it, the less it'll melt along the way, just like driving home directly from the grocery store keeps your frozen food from going mushy. (At least until it hits atmosphere, because then speed = heat.) So you need to specify what speed you're going to be returning the ice. Also, it should be possible to more or less bag the ice so that even if it does melt, you still have the water.
Hmm, a transmitter 10km away or one 500 km away. Which will be better for latency? If you can't get ground-based FTTN, you'll be better off taking mobile internet and only use satellite for areas with no mobile coverage or spotty conditions.
I admit i haven't used satellite internet for a few years, back then it was only one step above dial-up 56k modem. i assume they've figured out better bandwidth as well, but don't expect it to replace ground-based networks.
Speed of light in a glass fiber is in fact slow. So free space coms can be quicker. Remember these are LEO sats not GEO sats.
Isn't the speed of light in fiber about 70% of the speed in free space? (This is similar to the speed of electrical signals, which makes it convenient to handle both latencies in a similar manner.) Generally speaking, a fiber to the nearest edge of the network is going to be faster, but it's also specific to that one place.
Imagine spending thousands in equipment just to get lines in your image
If you want to make observations without low orbit satellite appearing in your wiew field falow a empirical rule, don't watch in the first hour of the night 30 degrees above western horizon and in the last hour of the night a similar area above Eastern one, obviously in the summer(but only then) would be a third and permanent (in the sense that would be present to whole duration of the night) avoidance zone in the north or south depending on which emisfere you are , and when you are closer to the polar circle this area will be pretty large, but not even in Canada summer don't last whole year and in the average maybe 90%of the night sky cannot be affected by passing satellite. (even geostationary satellite enter into the shadow of the earth for a hour or two)
Like I said, the big surprise was how many observing nights will have passes all night long during the shorter nights.
@@frasercain even in the these shorter summer nights, and if you are in a place on earth where half of the night sky would be affected still can watch southern half of the sky (if you are in the northern emisfere) and northern one (if you are in the southern emisfere) and don't worry about any satellite enter in your wiew field. Like I said on the average would be only a minor inconvenience for astronomy. Maybe somebody will make a application for phone to warn you what area not watch depending where you are on the earth and witch day of the year is.
In Europe satellites will be illuminated by the sun all through midnight in may through August.
@@PepsiMagt you missing the point, not even in the summer satellite wouldn't be visible whole night on the entire surface of the night sky, only in the northern side, and if you make a statistical analysis for a whole year and all region of the world will take the conclusion that it's only a minor inconvenience for astronomy.
@@theOrionsarms I think YOU are missing the point, that the astronomers themselves think this will be very damaging. Because the satellites will be very visible all through the night. And yes, there will also be unaffected parts of the sky, but only until Musk and Bezos starts launching into polar orbits.
When NASA wants to launch a satellite with a rocket made by an outside corporation like a delta V heavy or something, do those companies start building a brand new rocket specifically for that mission or do they keep one or two in like a warehouse on standby until they are needed for a mission ?
Who are these ‘legislators’ that let this constellation concept get implemented without proper restrictions on what is obviously a theft of the commons? Where’s the international say-so on all of this? Or is this the brave new world of corporate hubris dictating commercial gain over all else?
Why did they make them so reflective to the sun? I don’t want to look at these after the first grid is installed. Who steals the system first for defense & control? China, USA, Russia or another entity?
windows10suxalot solar panels are pretty reflective, also the satellite itself is just a metal plate which also reflects a lot.
If it wasn't reflective then it would absorb more of the suns heat
But aren't we going into realm of giant space telescopes anyway ?
Like James Webb.
Eventually, very much so. An interferometry space telescope constellation similar to Event Horizon on Earth is in the talks.
This doesn’t just affect the large observatories though. It affects every scientist/hobbyist who studies astronomy from their backyard. Those millions of people can’t reserve time on a space based telescope. Taking away the ability for the average person to study astronomy from their home would be a horrible thing to do to the field of study. The satellites that are up now, already cause issues with my imaging sessions.
Sure, but there's always a need for ground-based astronomy.
You overestimate our financial capabilities for competitive space telescopes
Like it or not Skynet is coming for the benefit of all. Better work with them than going against it.
The robots that kill humanity in Terminator?
Great video, Fraser.
Thanks!
Great video .Thanks Fraser.
Hi Fraser!
How will a potential explosion of betelgeuse impact ongoing astronomy projects?
I suppose a lot of resources will be allocated to observe that unique phenomenon and a lot will be learned from doing so.I am curious tho, won't that extra light on the night sky affect other ongoing observations?I suppose having 2x moonlight in the sky will make some deep and faint objects unobtainable.
Again thank you for the amazing content and sorry if this have been asked again.
Chris.
Unlike the moon, Betelgeuse doesn't wander across the sky over the course of a month, so any effect on observations would be confined mostly to that patch of sky.
I still find it insane that a USA based company like SpaceX is allowed to put their satellites above Europe while Europe already has fiber connections almost everywhere (1gbps down and up speed). I don't like them flying above my property. Perhaps it's time to install some lasers to highlight the satellite borders.
You're one of the lucky ones to have high-speed internet. Half of the planet (including many people here in Canada) have no way to get access to the internet like you.
I'm not convinced yet that this is a real issue. How many planes are there in the sky at any time in the world? Any night sky observer has seen many planes, satellites and meteorites. Any time-lapse night sky video shows it. Astrophotographers used to superimpose many photos on each other (stacking). For example, if one plate is ruined you remove it and you don't add it to the stack. No? I'm sure that modern telescope are more advanced that amateur astrophotographers and they must have a software able remove those streaks in their photos as they must already do with current planes, meteorites and satellites.
It's a problem when 3/4 or more of your plates are ruined though, which is what we're facing when the constellation gets up to full size. There needs to be a better way to remove known objects from the individual exposures so they don't just have to be thrown out entirely.
As someone pointed out above, AI might actually be well-positioned to assist with this.
I am glad that you made this video
We should make a community against starlink
Nights skies are more important 😤
This ain't for wifi this is a global weapon
While I appreciate what astronomers do, I would MUCH rather have an alternative High Speed Internet provider available. Let's face it, which project will have a more useful impact on my life? High speed internet or some new exoplanet? Sorry astronomers, but you're just going to have to deal with it.
First it's nowhere near fiber speed and second these astronomers and compiling information that will be invaluable to future space faring generations not to mention they also study objects on a potential collision course with earth. Oh and what about the emissions from those launches. This is a terrible system, stop being stupid.
@@pr3cious193 Having an opinion that differs from your own does not make someone stupid. If you think that way, well perhaps you are the one being stupid. Reasonable adults can disagree about whether humanity is better served by more widespread access to the internet and therefore information at the expense of a bit of inconvenience for earthside observatories or not.
Orbital, space based telescopes are far more effective and can do a better job at the things you mentioned without being affected by SL at all.
And please, spare me your hand-wringing about "emissions." Did you complain about emissions when Hubbel was launched?
@@randomuser778 How many space telescopes do we send to space? One every 20 years? How many of this SpaceX trash will have to be sent to space? 40k satellites with 5 year life span? Are you this much of a Musk's fanboy to not see how detrimental this system is?
Well, I think this could be the end of ground based astronomy, be it professional or amateur. And just waiting for the Kessler syndrome to kick in and put an end to space exploration too.
That's not likely, as the satellites will orbit at 550 kms altitude. Low enough to dekay into the atmosphere over a couple of years.
But they will certainly be damaging to astronomy.
You can solve this with software.
It will take more than a couple of years for satellites orbiting at 550 Kms to fall back into the Earth’s atmosphere. A decade, maybe more, is more likely. The Hubble Space Telescope was last serviced by a Shuttle in 2009, orbiting at an altitude not that much higher than 550 Kms and 14 years later, it is still orbiting the Earth.
Me watching this just before bed at 1am. Starting to drift off. "I'd like to thank my Patrons...PostFapShame." Waking right up. What? I rewound it to make sure my half-asleep brain hadn't tricked me.
Yeah, I guess that's the benefit of being a patron. To make me say that. 😀
How about having a full spectrum Camara array on every satalite where you can have thousands of Camaras watching space....