Blog Posts

CBC (19 January 2023)

2/3/2023

Goodbye, dark sky. The stars are rapidly disappearing from our night sky

The research "confirms something that many of us have suspected for a while, which is that the rate at which light pollution is growing throughout the world is much faster than we previously appreciated," said John Barentine, the executive officer and principal consultant at Dark Sky Consulting, LLC and former head of the International Dark Sky Association, who was not involved in the study.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/light-pollution-increasing-1.6719034

Science (14 November 2022)

2/3/2023

Giant satellite outshines stars, sparking fresh concerns for astronomers

Thousands of commercial satellites already litter low-Earth orbit. The 64-square-meter BlueWalker 3 is the largest one yet, considerably brighter than any of the Starlink satellites deployed by SpaceX, says astronomer John Barentine of Dark Sky Consulting. On top of the light pollution, BlueWalker 3 is testing a transmission technology that threatens to trespass into the frequencies used by radio observatories on Earth, he says. “This just fundamentally feels different,” he says. “We’re in new territory here.”

Read more: https://www.science.org/content/article/giant-satellite-outshines-stars-sparking-fresh-concerns-astronomers

Travel + Leisure (9 December 2022)

2/3/2023

The Next Few Years Are 'Prime Time' to Spot the Northern Lights — Here's How to See Them

After reaching what scientists call solar minimum in December 2019, the cycle is back on the upswing as it builds toward the next solar maximum in around 2025. “The next few years may be prime time for aurora watchers,” said John Barentine, formerly the director of conservation for the International Dark-Sky Association, an advocacy group.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/next-few-years-prime-time-235743898.html

New Scientist (25 November 2022)

2/3/2023

Bluewalker 3 satellite is brighter than 99.8 per cent of visible stars

"There are only 14 stars in the night sky brighter than magnitude +1.5," says John Barentine of Dark Sky Consulting, a company based in Tucson, Arizona, who wasn't involved in the work. "That means that BlueWalker 3 under typical conditions is brighter than 99.8 per cent of all stars visible to the unaided eye."

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2348615-bluewalker-3-satellite-is-brighter-than-99-8-per-cent-of-visible-stars/

New Scientist (9 September 2022)

11/7/2022

Huge satellite could outshine all stars and planets in the night sky

“We are concerned,” says John Barentine, an astronomer at Dark Sky Consulting in Tucson, Arizona. “It could be the brightest object in the night sky, potentially brighter than the planet Venus.” ... “Most astronomers accept there will be more satellites in the future,” says Barentine. “What they want is a peaceful coexistence. We can’t make satellites invisible.”

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2337336-huge-satellite-could-outshine-all-stars-and-planets-in-the-night-sky/

Business Insider (4 November 2022)

11/7/2022

A 500-drone fleet lit up a Candy Crush ad over New York City. Night sky ads drive a wedge between humans and nature, astronomers say.

"In the big scheme of things, it's of little consequence compared to the very many poor-quality outdoor lights that are on all night long in many US cities," John Barentine, an astronomer and consultant at Dark Sky Consulting, told Insider. "If it became a nightly event, or if there were many such displays happening at once, I would be more nervous about it."

Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomers-concerned-over-drone-light-show-above-manhattan-skies-2022-11

New Scientist (6 October 2022)

11/7/2022

Space adverts are now economically viable but potentially dangerous

“The spaceflight risk from debris related to these objects is considerable,” says John Barentine of Dark Sky Consulting, a company based in Tucson, Arizona. “Left derelict in orbits with long lifetimes, every single object becomes a potential ‘bullet’ that threatens every other object in similar orbits. Any one might set off a catastrophic cascade of debris generation.”

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2341335-space-adverts-are-now-economically-viable-but-potentially-dangerous/

Quanta Magazine (25 July 2022)

7/25/2022

Two Weeks In, the Webb Space Telescope Is Reshaping Astronomy

“We have this exquisitely sensitive machine that is going to serendipitously reveal things we didn’t even know we were looking for,” Barentine said. “In almost every image Webb takes, it’s worth poking around in the background.”

Read more: https://www.quantamagazine.org/two-weeks-in-the-webb-space-telescope-is-reshaping-astronomy-20220725

The 1PM Show (10 April 2022)

4/15/2022

TechRadar (19 January 2022)

4/15/2022

Starlink satellites mar a fifth of asteroid-spotting telescope's critical observations

“The mechanisms in [international] law that might have allowed us to avoid this, those wheels turn so slowly that by the time we would get to any consensus on a policy solution, this is all going to be over,” said John Barentine, an astronomer and the director of public policy at the International Dark-Sky Association. “I just think that it’s a numbers game that astronomy probably cannot win.”

Read more: https://www.techradar.com/news/starlink-satellites-mar-a-fifth-of-asteroid-spotting-telescopes-critical-observations