Mega constellations formed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites could ruin our view of the night sky, warn astronomers
- The first 60 of an intended 12,000 Starlink probes were blasted into orbit last week
- The satellites, currently at an altitude of 450km (280 miles), are visible to the naked eye
Mega constellations of human-made satellites could soon blight the view of the night sky, astronomers warned after the launch of Elon Musk’s Starlink probes last week.
The first 60 of an intended 12,000 satellites were successfully blasted into orbit on Thursday by Musk’s company, SpaceX, which plans to use them to beam internet communication from space down to Earth.
Sightings of the procession of satellites trailing across the heavens, such as that posted online by the amateur astronomer Marco Langbroek, initially prompted excitement and astonishment. The spectacle was so bizarre that a Dutch UFO website was inundated with more than 150 reports from people suspecting an alien encounter was close at hand.
But for astronomers the initial excitement quickly gave way to dismay as they began to calculate the potentially drastic impact on people’s views of the cosmos.
“I saw that train and it was certainly very spectacular,” said Cees Bassa, an astronomer at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy. “With that comes the realisation that if several thousands of these are launched it will change what the night sky looks like.”