As we’ve been having reasonably clear nights over parts
of the UK recently, I’ve been outside doing a little stargazing in the evening
with my trusty Celestron telescope.
I wanted to take a closer look at Venus which is
particularly bright in the night sky at the moment, and even with my entry
level telescope I can just about make some atmosphere detail.
One thing that has been fairly easy to spot without the
aid of telescopes is the train of Starlink satellites all in a line crossing
the night sky .
Starlink is a satellite constellation being constructed
by American company SpaceX , founded by Elon Musk.
SpaceX have been sending satellites up into Earth’s orbit
in batches of 60, with the most recent launch taking place in mid-March.
Another batch is scheduled to be launched on 22 April.
So far, the firm has deployed more than 300 satellites into space
and is working towards a network of 12.000, with the aim of improving global
internet coverage.
Considering there are currently only 2,218 satellites in total
orbiting the Earth, serious astronomers are voicing concern, which have already
seen streaks crossing their telescopes’ view scarring the observations with parallel
marks and degrading their scientific value.
For the casual stargazer it sounds an exciting prospect to easily
observe rows of space vehicles crossing the night sky like something from Dan
Dare, or a pulp sci-fi book cover. But as there are only approximately 9000
stars that are visible to the unaided human eye, things will look a lot
different when the sky is blanketed by tens of thousands of shining man-made objects
diminishing our view of the universe.
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