Amazon Is Going to Fill the Sky With Satellites. Astronomers Aren’t Happy“BlueWalker was a shock to us as to how bright it was. We are also very worried about the impact to radio astronomy,” since one of its downlink frequencies is next to a protected radio band at 42.5-43.5 gigahertz, says John Barentine, one of the study’s coauthors and a conference attendee. A Tucson, Arizona-based astronomer, he is also the executive officer of Dark Sky Consulting, which advises companies and government officials on outdoor lighting to preserve dark night skies.
Satellites Keep Photobombing Space Images. Astronomers Need a FixThe Rubin collaboration has expressed concern about the possibility of false alerts thanks to light reflecting off of satellites or space junk in orbit and has warned that as many as 30 percent of its images could be affected by satellite streaks. For example, a glint of sunlight off a small piece of insulation shed by a satellite could appear in a telescope image like a flaring star. Unless an astronomer can also measure the light's spectrum, they might be fooled, says John Barentine, a Tucson, Arizona, astronomer who recently authored a study about light pollution from low Earth orbit objects. Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/satellites-keep-photobombing-space-images-astronomers-need-a-fix/ |
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