"Beyond the limit": Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

michelb

Worrying for sure. But I doubt the current USA, along with Israel and Russia are going to be bothered about this. Everyone is launching satellites and other gear into orbit for war.

tapland

Ugh the part about Munich is depressing. Finding a dark clear sky spot is one of the worlds greatest joys and most awesome experiences.

zoilism

For the first time in human history, the generations living now have been systematically robbed of their ancestral right to witness the night sky and its jaw-droppingly awe-inspiring magnificence.

xadhominemx

I am a science and astronomy fan, but I am sorry, in this case progress is more important. If we regret our decision, the LEOs will fall out of the sky by themselves in a few years and it will be ok.

rcpt

Why are they bright? Do they have big lights flashing or is it reflection

Legend2440

This is a tradeoff we have to make with infrastructure and development in general. How do you balance human needs with pristine nature? Do we put up long-distance power lines and wind farms even though they ruin the views? Do you tear down a forest to put up farmlands and suburbs? Do you build a dam to provide water for irrigation, even though it kills the fish and floods a valley? Satellites are actually easier than most of those tradeoffs, because nothing lives in space and there's no nature to destroy. It only affects us.

0-_-0

If we can launch 1M satellites, how many telescopes can we launch?

manoDev

Should it be possible to coordinate orbits to create permanent clear spots on the sky where observatories are? A LEO no flight zone of sorts.

arjie

These kinds of caps have for years been a dampener on human flourishing. My observation has been that those in stagnation or decline tend to attach themselves to these desires to hold the status quo. Anti-energy, anti-housing, anti-industry and so on because they've reached a local maxima in their ability to live and have chosen to spend their life in leisure. But there is the rest of the world, and if I'm told that the Africans should not have access to high-speed satellite Internet[0] so that the Europeans can use one specific method of looking at the stars, I don't find that convincing. In time, as we expand, space-based observation will become fairly feasible for everyone. And the satellites we have will decay to the Earth should we fail to keep them up there. We will build Earth orbital structures and swarms, and we will build Sun orbital structures and swarms, and we will go to the stars, and it will be better for humanity as a whole. 0: https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2026/07/02/...

holoduke

ah and guess what. only western US / European countries are allowed to have them. The rest are called shadow fleet satellites.

ChrisArchitect

Title is: One million satellites and mirrors in space pose grave threat to the night sky

SilverElfin

It’s a public space. No one should be able to just take it over for free. We aren’t being compensated for the pollution of our skies. And also, higher orbits require much longer for debris to fall back and burn up.

tiahura

99.99% of the world would rather watch a train of Starlink satellites than some star they couldn't see anyway. Not to mention the satellites' other benefits.

protortyp

Of course this comes from a European organisation.

ck2

too late https://satellitemap.space there are already several starlink competitors and even other countries planning to launch their own 1000-10,000 node networks

rho138

It upsets me that an establishment like ESO would grip on the “data centers in space” narrative given the absurd physics constraints.

nablaxcroissant

I'm not sure how exactly they are making these calculations but I just don't see it. Both Reflect and SpaceX are targeting SSO orbits where they are only reflecting for an hour or two at sunset. That isn't true of Starlink, but that constellation is already up there and if its fine right now, I don't see it getting much worse as the materials on it get refined to be less problematic. More regulations would just have the result of cementing a monopoly for Spacex.

CodesInChaos

How much CO2 does launching a million satellites produce? Is is significant compared to other sources of CO2?

chhxdjsj

Perhaps we have 100 years to spread consciousness to space before civilisation is devastated by demographic collapse or nuclear war or some horrible virus or islam. 99.9% of species that have existed on earth are already extinct. Climate change happens constantly over long periods. Our CO2 emissions will be background noise on a million year timescale. Time to ignore the whingers and the NIMBYs and colonize the universe.

mrwaffle

For a very imprecise visual, I like the site https://satellite.love