No place is safe from light pollution, not even space. On Wednesday, astrophotographer Daniel López shared a photo he captured of NEOWISE kite The day before in the Teide National Park in the Canary Islands. However, SpaceX’s Starlink satellites ruined the image, painting streaks across the sky, largely pristine.
These are the satellites last intrusion in the world of astronomy. The biggest concerns around the inevitable presence of light have been on planet Earth for years, but artificial lighting is also beginning to pollute the edges of the planet. Astronomers face challenges when these satellites appear and contaminate the images they take from distant galaxies and now kites
SpaceX has launched 540 satellites into orbit as part of its efforts to bring high speed internet worldwide by 2021. However, the plan is for the company to eventually have tens of thousands of these satellites in space. The company is run by Elon Musk, a billionaire who is not exactly known for Following the rules or loving on how their decisions impact others. But it’s not just SpaceX, other companies also want to follow suit. It is understandable that the astronomy community is angry.
“Astronomers, astrophysicists and astrophotographers are concerned about the large deployment of small satellites orbiting the earth,” Lopez said in an email to Earther. “Now they want to launch about 40,000 [satellites] Later, other companies will want to launch their own orbits, and the sky will not be what it has been for millions of years. Thousands of dots will appear and disappear in the night sky. “
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Back on Earth, the intrusion of light into nature creates its own set of problems. An excess of unnatural light is fueling Loss of insects worldwide. It also eliminates the behavior of a number of critters, such as salamanders, baby turtles, and tree frogs. Then of course there’s the lost value when a community lose a dark sky to light-filled development. It’s hard to put a dollar amount in the beautiful night view that is dark like, well, night.
Astronomers are also sensitive to the state of the night sky and have long searched for places free of terrestrial light pollution to conduct research. Now even his research into some of the most natural dark places on Earth suffers as a result of the lights in space, and with it, our understanding of our place in the universe.
“Personally, I think that if no action is taken, it will be the end of astronomy as we know it from the surface of the Earth,” Lopez said.
Humans need to rethink the role of light both on Earth and on the outer edges of the planet and beyond. Otherwise, our star-filled skies will be lost forever. SpaceX is already taking steps to reduce the amount of light that satellites reflect of the white antennas mounted on them, but these problems may only be the beginning of space pollution.
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