astronomy – Techdirt (original) (raw)

from the first-do-no-harm dept

For years, scientific researchers have warned that Elon Musk’s Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband constellations are harming scientific research. Simply put, the light pollution Musk claimed would never happen in the first place is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but never fully eliminated.

Now with Amazon joining the low Earth orbit satellite race, scientists are increasingly warning that the problem is getting worse, making night sky research more difficult than ever:

“A study published in the journal Nature this week shows that a prototype of AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird swarm has become one of the brightest objects in the heavens. Another study documents how even deliberately darkened satellites are still twice as bright—if not more—than the limit astronomers have called for to minimize effects on space science.”

At a conference last week organized by the International Astronomical Union’s Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (CPS), scientists noted that even with active efforts to darken and reduce satellite reflections, such satellites are still more than twice as bright as the limit astronomers have recommended to curb such pollution.

Some astronomers have developed systems to track the thousands of LEO satellites being sent into orbit, but those solutions are costly and don’t scale particularly well. Worried that they’ll hamper innovation, regulators had largely been a no-shows on crafting meaningful guidelines; most of what they’ve developed so far has been voluntary.

Then there’s the question of: is this harm to scientific research actually worth it? It’s great to be able to get gigabit broadband on the back of your RV in the middle of nowhere, but capacity constraints and the laws of physics mean that, unlike fiber or even 5G wireless, such systems will always have some notable capacity limitations (Starlink speeds have consistently dropped as capacity shrinks under load).

Starlink currently has 1.5 million global users, when somewhere around 20-30 million Americans lack access to broadband, and another 83 million live under monopoly. Given the high price of service (up to 120amonthanda120 a month and a 120amonthanda600 up front hardware charge) such services also don’t address broadband affordability issues. LEO satellites aren’t truly fixing the underlying problem anytime soon.

Ultimately there’s supposed to be tens of thousands of such smaller satellites peppering the night sky. And while it will ensure you can get a decent broadband signal in the middle of nowhere (if you can afford it and can navigate the year-plus waiting list), there’s a steep scientific cost we’re not doing a particularly good job preparing for.

Filed Under: astronomy, high speed internet, leo, light pollution, satellites, space

from the first-do-no-harm dept

Fri, Mar 10th 2023 03:42pm - Karl Bode

Scientists say that low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations like Starlink continue to pose a dire threat to astronomy and scientific research, and that too little is being done to address the issue.

Last fall, scientists declared satellite constellations an “existential threat for astronomy.” In short, the reflection and light pollution (Musk claimed would never happen in the first place) is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but never fully eliminated. Musk’s promises of a fix have, like many of his products, been a no show.

German researchers recently studied LEO satellites’ impact specifically on the Hubble telescope and the results weren’t great:

The research, led by Sandor Kruk from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, found that 3.7% of Hubble images taken from 2009 to 2020 were tarnished by satellite streaks. By 2021, this number had risen to 5.9%. There were 1,562 Starlink and 320 OneWeb satellites in orbit at the time, “increasing the population of satellites close to the orbit” of Hubble, the scientists write.

Things have gotten worse since this data. And of course there are numerous other companies, including Amazon, that are preparing to launch tens of thousands of additional LEO satellites in the next few years.

It’s worth noting that the newer Webb Space Telescope isn’t impacted, given it’s 932,000 miles away. But numerous ground based observatories have reported the same problems Hubble is experiencing, forcing them to implement costly and impractical countermeasures they say can’t scale with the growth of LEO deployments.

Space X and Starlink SpaceX recently entered into a voluntary coordination agreement with the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to try and mitigate some of the worst effects its Starlink satellite network is having on ground-based astronomy observations. The issue was forced by the Biden FCC, which wouldn’t give approval for Starlink’s 30,000 satellite launches until such a deal was struck.

Musk being Musk, and the FCC being, well, the FCC, there’s no guarantee that the effort ever amounts to much, that SpaceX and Starlink adheres to any requirements that come from the deal, or that the FCC will hold anybody accountable should Space X, Starlink, Amazon, or other politically influential companies fail to address concerns.

Filed Under: astronomy, broadband, Hubble telescope, leo, low earth orbit satellites, science, scientific research, starlink, webb telescope
Companies: spacex, starlink

from the sorry-about-that-whole-astronomy-thing dept

Fri, Jan 20th 2023 03:44pm - Karl Bode

For years, scientific researchers have warned that Elon Musk’s Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband constellations are harming scientific research. Simply put, the light pollution Musk claimed would never happen in the first place is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but never fully eliminated.

Musk and company long claimed they were working on upgraded satellites that are less obtrusive to scientists (using dielectric mirror film and solar array changes to minimized reflection), but it’s Musk, so those solutions haven’t materialized years after they were promised.

That said, Space X and Starlink SpaceX has entered into a coordination agreement with the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to try and mitigate some of the worst effects its Starlink satellite network is having on ground-based astronomy observations. The issue was forced by the Biden FCC, which wouldn’t give approval full Starlink’s 30,000 satellite launches until such a deal was struck:

According to reports, the FCC gave permission for the company to launch 7,500 of the nearly 30,000 satellites it hopes to send aloft, while deferring consideration of the rest of the constellation and making a coordination agreement with the NSF a condition of the licence.

Musk being Musk, and the FCC being, well, the FCC, there’s no guarantee that the talks ever amount to much, that SpaceX and Starlink adheres to any requirements that come from the deal, or that the FCC will hold anybody accountable should Space X and Starlink fail to address concerns. That’s in large part because the agreements are entirely voluntary:

The agreement is voluntary, since beyond the FCC requirement for such an agreement in the Gen2 Starlink license there is no law or policy requiring SpaceX or other satellite operators to mitigate the effects of their constellation on astronomy.

Again, it’s worth reiterating that Musk insisted that none of this would ever be a problem. And regulators, wary of being accused of harming innovation, didn’t even consider acting until it was already a widespread problem.

It’s also worth reiterating that while Starlink is a useful service for those with no other broadband options, the system’s capacity constraints mean it can never really function at the kind of scale needed to truly address even just the U.S.’ broadband gaps. The service, with a $710 first month charge for hardware and service, still falls well short on a main obstacle to broadband adoption: affordability.

In the interim, astronomers have been forced to adopt elaborate and costly countermeasures, such as a system that tracks all low-orbit positions allowing them to turn off observatory systems when needed. The problem: the solutions place the onus on researchers, and they don’t scale to handle the massive incoming parade of low-orbit systems coming from SpaceX, Amazon, and others.

A voluntary overlay asking SpaceX and Starlink to at least try to not demolish astronomy could prove somewhat performative if there are no hard requirements or penalties involved.

Filed Under: astronomy, fcc, high speed internet, light pollution, low earth orbit satellites, nsf, scientific research, starlink
Companies: spacex, starlink

from the government-is-not-always-your-mortal-enemy,-weirdo dept

Wed, Dec 7th 2022 03:43pm - Karl Bode

For years, scientific researchers have warned that Elon Musk’s Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband constellations are harming scientific research. Simply put, the light pollution Musk claimed would never happen in the first place is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but never fully eliminated.

Musk and company claim they’re working on upgraded satellites that are less obtrusive to scientists, but it’s Musk, so who knows if those solutions actually materialize. Musk isn’t alone in his low-orbit satellite ambitions. Numerous other companies, including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, are planning to fling tens of thousands of these low-orbit satellite “megaconstallations” into the heavens.

One 2020 paper argued that the approval of these low-orbit satellites by the FCC technically violated the environmental law embedded in the 1970 U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Scientific American notes how the FCC has thus far sidestepped NEPA’s oversight, thanks to a “categorical exclusion” the agency was granted in 1986 — long before LEO satellites were a threat.

Last week yet another study emerged from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO, full study here), recommending that the FCC at least revisit the issue:

“We think they need to revisit [the categorical exclusion] because the situation is so different than it was in 1986,” says Andrew Von Ah, a director at the GAO and one of the report’s two lead authors. The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) recommends that agencies “revisit things like categorical exclusions once every seven years,” Von Ah says. But the FCC “hasn’t really done that since 1986.”

Despite the fact that low-earth orbit solutions like Starlink generally lack the capacity to be meaningfully disruptive to the country’s broadband monopolies, and are, so far, too expensive to address one of the biggest obstacles to adoption (high prices due to said monopolies), the FCC has generally adopted a “we’re too bedazzled by the innovation to bother” mindset until recently.

The FCC this year did recently decide to roll back nearly a billion in Trump-era subsidies for Starlink (in part because the company misled regulators about coverage, but also because the FCC doubted they’d be able to deliver promised speeds and coverage). And the FCC did recently enact laws tightening up requirements for discarding older, failed satellites to address “space junk.”

But taking a tougher stand here would require the FCC taking a bold stance on whether or not NEPA actually applies to the “environment” of outer space and low-Earth orbit, which remains in debate. This is an agency that can’t even be bothered to publicly declare with any confidence that telecom monopolies exist or are a problem, so it seems pretty unlikely they’d want to wade into such controversy.

Like a lot of Musk efforts (like the fatal public potential of misrepresented “full self driving” technology), the issue has been simplistically framed as one of innovation versus mean old pointless government bureaucracy. This simplistic distortion has resulted in zero meaningful oversight as problems mount, something that impacts not just the U.S. (where most launches occur), but every nation on the planet:

“Our society needs space,” says Didier Queloz, an astronomer and Nobel laureate at the University of Cambridge. “I have no problem with space being used for commercial purposes. I just have a problem that it’s out of control. When we started to see this increase in satellites, I was shocked that there are no regulations. So I was extremely pleased to hear that there has been an awareness that it cannot continue like that.”

I’d expect this issue gets punted into the bowels of agency policy purgatory. Even if the agency does act it will be years from now, and unlikely to apply to the satellite licenses already doled out to companies like Starlink and Amazon. And while there are several bills aimed at tightening up restrictions in the space, it seems unlikely any of them are going to survive a dysfunctional and corrupt Congress.

That means that the light pollution caused by LEO satellites will continue to harm scientific researchers, who’ve been forced to embrace expensive, temporary solutions to the problem that are very unlikely to scale effectively as even more LEO companies set their sights on the heavens.

Filed Under: astronomy, gao, high speed internet, leo, light pollution, low earth orbit satellites, mega constellations, starlink, telecom
Companies: spacex, starlink

Scientists Try To Out Maneuver Elon Musk’s Satellite Light Pollution

from the innovation-ain't-everything dept

Thu, Aug 18th 2022 12:55pm - Karl Bode

For a few years, scientific researchers have warned that Elon Musk’s Starlink low orbit satellite broadband constellations are harming scientific research. Simply, the light pollution Musk claimed would never happen in the first place is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but not eliminated.

Musk and company claim they’re working on upgraded satellites that are less obtrusive to scientists, but it’s Musk, so who knows if those solutions actually materialize. Musk isn’t alone in his low-orbit satellite ambitions. Numerous other companies, including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, are planning to fling tens of thousands of these low-orbit satellites into the heavens.

All to deploy broadband services that will only put a small dent in U.S. broadband gaps due to capacity constraints and the laws of physics.

While nobody has implemented a meaningful fix yet, researchers from the University of Arizona say they’ve developed a new satellite tracking system that will give researchers ample warning before low orbit satellites have the opportunity to screw photographs and research.

But it’s not really a fix. It’s probably not going to be able to scale with the flood of new low-orbit satellites being launched, it doesn’t actually resolve any of the underlying issues, and turning on and off massive, sophisticated systems like these incurs additional costs:

Frustratingly, the idea of using a sensor to warn astronomers of potential interference is also not ideal. Shutting off a telescope’s camera requires electricity, so it’s akin to powering down a desktop computer and turning it back on again—but in this case the computer is a rather expensive and gigantic instrument that’s used to make sensitive observations of distant objects in the sky. As a consequence, this method has the potential of driving up cost and lowering efficiency for studies of the universe.

Another problem is there are simply so many low orbit satellites being launched, the resulting space junk is creating numerous navigational hazards. US regulators, very much in character, have been largely a no show on either front, with a few occasional exceptions.

Filed Under: astronomy, elon musk, light pollution, low orbit satellite, satellites, scientific research, starlink
Companies: spacex

Astronomers Say Space X Astronomy Pollution Can't Be Fixed

from the blinded-by-the-light dept

Tue, Sep 8th 2020 02:09pm - Karl Bode

We recently noted how the Space X launch of low orbit broadband satellites is not only creating light pollution for astronomers and scientists, but captured U.S. regulators, eager to try and justify rampant deregulation, haven’t been willing to do anything about it. While Space X’s Starlink platform will create some much needed broadband competition for rural users, the usual capacity constraints of satellite broadband mean it won’t be a major disruption to incumbent broadband providers. Experts say it will be painfully disruptive to scientific study and research, however:

While Space X says it’s taking steps to minimize the glare and “photo bombing” capabilities of these satellites (such as anti-reflective coating on the most problematic parts of the satellites), a new study suggests that won’t be so easy. The joint study from both the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) found that while Space X light pollution can be minimized somewhat, it won’t be possible to eliminate:

“Changes are required at both ends: constellation operators and observatories. SpaceX has shown that operators can reduce reflected sunlight through satellite body orientation, Sun shielding, and surface darkening. A joint effort to obtain higher-accuracy public data on predicted locations of individual satellites (or ephemerides) could enable some pointing avoidance and mid-exposure shuttering during satellite passage. Observatories will need to adopt more dynamic scheduling and observation management as the number of constellation satellites increases, though even these measures will be ineffective for many science programs.”

Granted, in March, Space X boss Elon Musk predicted there would be no impact whatsoever from his Starlink project:

“I am confident that we will not cause any impact whatsoever in astronomical discoveries. Zero. That’s my prediction. We’ll take corrective action if it’s above zero.”

The report, which was first spotted by Ars Technica, notes that enough data has been collected to clearly indicate the impact is well above zero. Worse, they note that companies have only just started launching low-orbit satellite constellations. OneWeb and Space X have only just begun their efforts, and Amazon is expected to join the fray in a major way. Collectively, these launches will create some significant problems for scientists around the planet, the report concludes:

“If the 100,000 or more LEOsats proposed by many companies and many governments are deployed, no combination of mitigations can fully avoid the impacts of the satellite trails on the science programs of current and planned ground-based optical-NIR [near-infrared] astronomy facilities. Astronomers are just beginning to understand the full range of impacts on the discipline. Astrophotography, amateur astronomy, and the human experience of the stars and the Milky Way are already affected.”

While Space X’s lower altitude satellite are problematic, higher altitude satellites being eyed by the likes of Amazon are notably worse, the experts found. In a press release the groups detailed several ways of minimizing the impact of low-orbit satellite constellations (including launching less of them). But that’s going to require a lot of collaboration between researchers and industry. Collaboration that would be easier if we had U.S. regulators actually interested in helping coordinate that collaboration.

Filed Under: astronomy, fcc, leo satellites, satellite broadband, space pollution
Companies: amazon, oneweb, spacex

DailyDirt: Solving Mysteries Of The Universe…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The vast blackness of space might not look like much to the naked eye, but the origins of all life have come from distant stars. As Carl Sagan put it, we are all “star stuff” — we’re made of atoms that could have only been born in intense supernovas. It may appear futile to try to decipher what happened billions of years ago, but astronomers can literally look back in time and see the formation of the universe. Here are just a few cool things astronomers have discovered lately.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: astrobiology, astronomy, chirality, life, origin of life, oxygen, propylene oxide, space, space exploration, stars, sxdf-nb1006-2

DailyDirt: All Alone In The Universe With Nowhere To Go…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

People have been looking up into the sky for centuries, wondering what’s out there and if we’re alone on this world. Astronomers, more recently, have been looking into deep space with some relatively high-tech equipment — finding some strangely inexplicable phenomena (that could be alien megastructures?!) and still wondering if we’re alone in the universe. We may never know for sure if intelligent life exists anywhere else, but it doesn’t hurt to look, does it?

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: alien megastructures, aliens, astrobiology, astronomy, breakthrough prize foundation, et, exoplanets, extraterrestrial life, kepler space telescope, life, lightsail, nanocraft, seti, spacecraft, telescopes, trappist

DailyDirt: That's No Moon, And It's Not A Space Station, Either

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The Earth’s moon is the most well-known planetary satellite because we see it almost every night. But the Earth has a few more natural satellites that aren’t technically moons. There are a bunch of near-Earth objects (NEOs) that are in resonance with the Earth around the Sun. Several quasi-satellites and trojans dance around our planet in space — and these objects could be potential landing sites for probes someday (or for asteroid mining operations). They’re just not moons (or dwarf moons or whatever you want to nickname them), but maybe they’ll be space stations.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: 2010 tk7, 3753 cruithne, apollo 12, astronomy, earth trojans, lunar, moon, near earth objects, neos, quasi-satellites, satellites, space

DailyDirt: Where Has All The Matter Gone?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are vast amounts of stuff that no one knows anything about. Everything in the universe that we can see — that reflects light or glows on it own because it’s hot — only amounts to about 5% of the known mass of the universe. So… what’s going on with the other 95% of “stuff” that’s out there? Maybe there are exotic particles we haven’t discovered yet that are everywhere, but we just don’t know it. Physicists call this stuff “dark matter” and “dark energy” — and there could be a whole “dark sector” of dark matter doing things that we just can’t see. But we’re getting some hints for some of the stuff we can’t see by observing and measuring the outcomes of rare astronomical events — and by creating simulations of what possible undiscovered particles might do to the formation of galaxies and other distant space objects. Here are just a few projects that might explain how the universe works someday.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: alpha magnetic spectrometer, astronomy, cosmic rays, dark energy, dark matter, dark sector, fast radio burst, frb, iss, mysteries, physics, science, weakly interacting massive particles, wimps