All About Space

How bad will the light pollution be when 42,000 of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites are in operation?

-

Elon Musk has promised that the albedo, or reflectivi­ty, of each Starlink satellite will have zero per cent impact on

astronomy.

Although the sky never truly gets dark, embrace the challenge of summer stargazing

68

There will be a lot going on in the sky around Venus over the next few weeks

Get views of the most striking but overlooked craters on the lunar surface: Theophilus

There are fascinatin­g things to see in the night sky

72

74

75

76

There's no need to put your telescope into hibernatio­n on light summer nights

78

Plenty of targets for those armed with the right kit

80

Is the Celestron NexStar 6SE the right telescope for you?

 ??  ??
 ??  ?? We should not have to experience the light pollution of 42,000 Starlink satellites; it should be stopped before then. The satellites are visible with the naked eye under many circumstan­ces, so the experience would be out of a sciencefic­tion dystopia; skies would be crawling with hundreds of these satellites at a time like so many white maggots.
From a light-pollution perspectiv­e, the impacts of Starlink will fall into a few categories. First, the Starlink array interferes with astronomic­al observatio­n and will degrade the research abilities of both profession­al and amateur astronomer­s alike. Secondly, it will degrade the experience of wilderness areas that are supposed to be protected from human interferen­ce, including impacts to aesthetics, under US law. A night-sky view with hundreds of visible satellites is fundamenta­lly incompatib­le with the experience of the backcountr­y, outback, wilderness or the wide-open ocean. Thirdly, we
We should not have to experience the light pollution of 42,000 Starlink satellites; it should be stopped before then. The satellites are visible with the naked eye under many circumstan­ces, so the experience would be out of a sciencefic­tion dystopia; skies would be crawling with hundreds of these satellites at a time like so many white maggots. From a light-pollution perspectiv­e, the impacts of Starlink will fall into a few categories. First, the Starlink array interferes with astronomic­al observatio­n and will degrade the research abilities of both profession­al and amateur astronomer­s alike. Secondly, it will degrade the experience of wilderness areas that are supposed to be protected from human interferen­ce, including impacts to aesthetics, under US law. A night-sky view with hundreds of visible satellites is fundamenta­lly incompatib­le with the experience of the backcountr­y, outback, wilderness or the wide-open ocean. Thirdly, we

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom