Good morning. Starlink has now launched more than TEN THOUSAND satellites into orbit. Nearly 1400 have already been burned up in the atmosphere so far.
Here's a "lovely" image from my Kuiper Belt discovery program with dozens of satellite streaks in a 3 hour stacked exposure from CFHT. This was from 2022, when there were thousands fewer satellites... This is dumb.
Image credit: P. Cowan/W. Fraser/S. Lawler/CLASSY Survey Team
(The small streaks that are similar lengths are actually asteroids!)
@sundogplanets if I might shamelessly plug my podcast for all the Polish language readers of this, I had a guest on it, an astronomer from UWr, in which we discuss - amongst other topics - why this is so bad.
TL;DR: billionaires rack profits, you and me are footing the bill for the losses (as this impacts quality of science we can get for our money).
Jak wiecie niedawno miliarderzy polecieli w kosmos. Niestety tylko dwaj i już są z powrotem, ale mimo tego warto się zastanowić, czy ludzkość będzie miała z tego jakiś pożytek. Do rozmowy na ten temat Tomek zaprosił eksperta od kosmosu - dok...
Prof. Sam Lawler
Tomasz Oryński