Astronomers have warned that light pollution caused by the increasing number of satellites orbiting the Earth poses an “unprecedented global threat to nature.”
Since 2019, the number of satellites in low Earth orbit has more than doubled, after the American company SpaceX launched the first “huge constellation” of thousands of satellites.
A fleet of new internet clusters is due to be launched soon, adding thousands of satellites to the already crowded area of less than 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) above Earth.
Each new satellite increases the risk that it will collide with another Earth-orbiting object, creating more debris. This can create a chain reaction in which successive collisions create smaller fragments of debris, adding to a cloud of “space junk” that reflects light back to Earth.
In one of the research papers published in the journal Nature Astronomy, the researchers said that for the first time they measured how much a brighter night sky could financially and scientifically affect the work of a major observatory.
The modeling suggested that for the Vera Rubin Observatory, a giant telescope currently under construction in Chile, the darkest part of the night sky will become 7.5 percent brighter over the next decade.
That would reduce the number of stars the observatory can see by about 7.5%, study co-author John Barentyn said, and would add nearly a year to the observatory’s survey, at a cost of about $21.8 million.
He added that there is another cost of a brighter sky that is impossible to calculate, which are celestial events that humanity will never be able to observe, and the increase in light pollution may be worse than he thought.
Another study in Nature used extensive modeling to suggest that current measurements of light pollution significantly underestimate this phenomenon.
The researchers warned that the brightness of the night sky will not only affect professional astronomers and major observatories, according to Aparna Venkatesan, an astronomer at the University of San Francisco, also threatens “our ancient relationship with the night sky.”
The scientist called on a group of astronomers from Spain, Portugal and Italy to stop this attack in the natural night.
He also called on astronomers to radically limit the huge constellations, adding that “we must not dismiss the possibility of banning them.” (Russia Today)