Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites ‘blocking’ view of the universe

Lead author Cees Bassa said it was like comparing the “faintest stars visible to the naked eye and the brightness of the full Moon.” “Since SpaceX is launching about 40 second-generation Starlink satellites every week, this problem is becoming increasingly worse,” he added. Robert Massey, Deputy Executive Director of the Royal Astronomical Society in the UK, said: “it’s very clear that if you have something this bright that is compromising a major radio observatory this much, then we need to do something and we need to do it quickly.” Asked about the value of the astronomy research, he said: “it’s wrong to say that there is some science that you can simply dismiss. Scientists are also worried about light pollution from the satellites, and fear it is also interfering with optical telescopes. “Turning LOFAR back up and seeing these booming signals from these new generation of V2 Mini SpaceX satellites was a bit shocking,” says Prof Dempsey. If it continues, without the sort of mitigation to make these satellites quiet, then it does become an existential threat for the kinds of astronomy we do,” Prof Dempsey added. They said that as the largest provider of satellites, SpaceX could set a standard for limiting pollution. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4dnr8zemgo