Why are some astronomers unhappy with Starlink satellites Ilona Mask

Elon Musk often enough appears in the center of attention of the world press. This time, Space X, the company he heads, launched 60 Starlink satellites into orbit, and therefore, Elon Musk again hit the front pages of news publications. But less than a week has passed since the launch, and voices of dissatisfied with the new global project are already heard. Most of them belong to astrophysicists and amateur astronomers, who believe that the deployment of this system will lead to poor visibility and reduce the quality of observations of the night sky.

The goal of launching a new satellite communications system is to provide high-speed and cheap Internet access over most of the planet’s surface. To achieve this goal, it is planned to launch more than 10,000 satellites in the next few years. In the meantime, 60 satellites of the new system are functioning in Earth’s orbit, not counting several test instances. A bright “train” of Starlink satellites lined up in a row can be observed in many countries, so photos of new satellites regularly appear on the network against the background of the night sky.

But not everyone shows enthusiasm and charm with new objects of the starry sky. The fact is that, according to astronomers, these satellites are too bright, and their significant number and proximity only aggravates this effect. Excessive light interferes with the observations and may interfere with the operation of ground-based telescopes.

Elon Musk, in turn, noted that he did not see serious threats to astronomical observations, but nevertheless promised to solve this problem by reducing the reflectivity of the surface of satellites. In addition, the businessman noted that after all satellites have entered a given orbit, their position in the night sky will change and they will not create any interference.