The ever-increasing number of satellites poses challenges for terrestrial astronomy, but new research reveals that space telescopes like Hubble are struggling, too.
Satellites in low Earth orbit orbit the Earth once every 90 minutes. Factor in the thousands and thousands of satellites currently in orbit, and you can quickly solve the problem for terrestrial astronomy. Constellations like Starlink and OneWeb greatly exacerbate the problem, causing annoying streaks in astronomical images. The situation that scientists are in is very serious announce Satellite constellations pose an “existential threat to astronomy”.
Space astronomy might seem like an obvious solution, as SpaceX founder Elon Musk proposed in May 2019. tweet. Research published this week in natural astronomy indicates otherwise, showing just how susceptible the Hubble Space Telescope is to its burgeoning swarms of satellites.
The research, led by Sandor Crook of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, found that 3.7% of Hubble images taken from 2009 to 2020 were distorted by satellite lines. By 2021, that number has increased to 5.9%. There were 1,562 Starlink satellites and 320 OneWeb satellites in orbit at the time, the scientists wrote, “which has increased the number of satellites close to orbit” of Hubble.
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For the study, the researchers looked at more than 100,000 individual images from Hubble Contributed by more than 10,000 citizen scientists Work on Hubble Asteroid Hunter project. The deep learning algorithm was trained to detect images distorted by satellite lines and ignore trajectory-like features caused by natural phenomena, such as asteroids, gravitational lensing, and cosmic rays.
The data for that analysis stopped in 2021, but it’s now two years later, and with so many satellites currently in orbit, the problem is undoubtedly much worse. Moreover, as Kroc and colleagues draw a grim conclusion: “With the increasing number of satellites currently planned, the portions of Hubble Space Telescope images crossed by satellites will increase in the next decade and will require further study and close monitoring.”
The 33-year-old Hubble may be long in the tooth, but he’s still a critical performer Scientific work, whether it is searching for asteroids, NASA Experiment Monitoror simply staring at the sky. Obviously, satellite swarms have a detrimental effect on space astronomy, not good.
We will live with this problem. And astronomy will be affected,” Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said. Tell The New York Times, referring to the new study. There will be science that cannot be done. There will be much more expensive science. There will be things we miss.”
Astronomers, in an effort to prevent the situation from getting worse, staged and moved accordingly. In the latest development, A.J He sought international cooperation from the United Nations for assistanceasking them to assemble a team of experts in this regard.
Meanwhile, astronomers aren’t completely helpless, as they can apply various data and filtering techniques to identify and possibly salvage damaged images. As NASA told the New York Times, “the majority of the affected images are still usable.” This said, the extra time and cost Astronomical research is hardly perfect.
Astronomers are also asking satellite operators to do their part, such as making their satellites less reflective. In response to such requests, SpaceX has experimented with some mitigation techniques for Starlink, such as using dark coatings to absorb sunlight. Unfortunately, this “mitigation was less effective than would be desired,” according to SpaceX. Other methods, which are visors to block reflective sunlight and directional adjustments to reduce surface area, Proven to be “extremely effective,” the company claims. SpaceX is also experimenting with a “dielectric mirror film,” which directs light away from Earth.
Hubble currently operates 336 miles (540 kilometers) above the surface, which is nearly 6 miles (10 kilometers) lower than some of the taller Starlink satellites. The solution may be to dramatically raise Hubble’s orbit, which has shrunk dramatically over the decades. NASA and SpaceX currently hatch plan To determine if such a thing is possible.
As an aside, the recently published Webb Space TTelescope is immune to satellite lines, Because it operates 932,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) away at the second Lagrange point.
Lifting Hubble’s orbit could work, but that would be little consolation for other telescopes currently in operation in low Earth orbit and those currently under development, such as the upcoming Xuntian Space Telescope in China. This remains a problem in search of a solution.
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