Satellites Make up to 80,000 Flashing Glints Per Hour. It's a Big Problem for Astronomers
www.universetoday.com
Telescopes searching for brief flashes like supernovae and asteroids have to contend with a rising number of glints from satellites. These glints can last for a fraction of a second, but they're bright enough to be recorded as a starlike object in the field of view of a survey like the Vera Rubin Observatory. In a new study, astronomers identified tens of thousands of these glints captured by a survey telescope, and there could be 80,000/hour happening across the sky.
  • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
    8·
    1 year ago

    For those that know about trails and the ease of removing them from images through stacking as I thought, it isn’t about that, despite the cover image. It’s about momentary glints disrupting searches for momentary events. Not too much more to the article though, just raising awareness

  • wahming@monyet.ccEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    What’s the point of looking at the stars of we never reach for them? At some point the telescopes have to move into space, we can’t stay earthbound forever

    • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
      11·
      1 year ago

      Or we could regulate the reflectivity of satellites. No one is suggesting we shouldn’t have satellites. Why don’t we do satellites on purpose in a way that still allows us to also do effective astronomy?

      • beautiful_boater [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        They can’t make them non-reflective enough to not interrupt really deep observing. Also, that just shifts the problem around. If they are absorbing in the visible, they will likely have huge amounts of blackbody radiation in IR, sub/millimeter, and radio. You would need to make a satellite out of dark matter to not interrupt astronomy.

      • wahming@monyet.ccEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        No one is suggesting we shouldn’t have satellites.

        Many astronomers suggested exactly that, they were against the approval of starlink.

        we could regulate the reflectivity of satellites

        Starlink has been doing that for 3 years now. There are limits to how nonreflective they can get the satellites.

        • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
          8·
          1 year ago

          Standard issue Musk brain rot.

          “Shouldn’t have satellites” at all vs. “maybe let’s not approve this one corporation doing this completely unregulated activity.” If you really can’t tell the difference between those two things, I can’t help you.

          “limited to how nonreflective they can get the satellites”

          Citation needed.

          • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Love how you also completely ignore the dozens of other companies designing and/or beginning deployment of massive satellite constellations just like Starlink. Some of them even multiple times larger than what Starlink is aiming for.

            There very much are astronomers that have said they do not want ANY LEO satellite constellations.

            This isn’t just a Musk thing.

    • beautiful_boater [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Man, I just went to a good seminar today on finding habitable exoplanets that emphasized that we currently need ground based telescopes, because it is still impractical to make 30+ meter telescopes in space and would be very expensive, even if could be done. But progress is just launching a bunch of bullshit into orbit to avoid real investment in infrastructure like fiber and other telecommunication lines.

      • CmdrShepardEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        The people with the strongest opinions are almost always the least informed.

    • quicksand@lemm.ee
      1·
      1 year ago

      It’s reflected light from the Sun as they orbit, not lights installed on them. Maybe they can use a non-reflective coating or something for new ones though