Comment on Starlink is increasingly interfering with astronomy, scientists say
Successful_Try543@feddit.org 23 hours agoThe number of satellites in orbit around Earth is rapidly increasing, with some 100,000 expected to be in place by 2030. And as their numbers grow, so does the difficulty of observing the universe from Earth.
So basically, our billion dollar radio telescopes are blind on certain frequencies during the rest of this decade.
notfromhere@lemmy.ml 23 hours ago
As technology advances, our ability to observe the universe from space far surpasses ground-based telescopes. While I appreciate amateur astronomy, let’s acknowledge that satellites like those in low Earth orbit can occasionally interfere with surface observations. Instead of criticizing their presence, perhaps we could focus on working together to minimize disruptions and support continued space exploration – after all, observatories like JWST are pushing the boundaries of our understanding.
BrundleFly2077@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
This is an insane take. “While I appreciate amateur astronomy” - my dude, it’s not amateurs being affected here. You want to let a small number of tools become the only way humanity has to make these kinds of observations? You think the tools up there can somehow be made to equal the capacity and accommodate the man hours required to do the science we do?
You’re out of your mind.
Successful_Try543@feddit.org 22 hours ago
Don’t forget important discoveries are also made by amateurs, who permanently observe the night sky and measure the coordinates, i.e. their relative positions, of luminating objects. This allows others, mostly professionals, to calculate their motions and obtain information about the (hidden) masses, i.e. luminating and non luminating objects, inducing and influencing them.
BrundleFly2077@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
Discoveries about and observations of comets, supernovae, even exoplanet transits are regularly being enriched or even driven in some cases by “amateur” astronomers.
This guy’s legit out of his mind or he’s been huffing Elon’s musk.
notfromhere@lemmy.ml 15 hours ago
The tools “up there” could be made to rival the capacity and accommodate the man hours required to more science than we do now. The problem is it’s hard and expensive and nobody wants to try because of that fact. It’s becoming easier with cheaper launch vehicles and better communications infrastructure. Now we need folks to start identifying the best locations to send new observation satellites and then start building and launching them.
Your take is very conservative and counter to technological progress and I don’t appreciate the name calling. We can have a meaningful conversation without that crap.
stsquad@lemmy.ml 20 hours ago
You would be hard pushed to build something like the SKA in space given it spans multiple countries and a significant arc of the earth.
notfromhere@lemmy.ml 15 hours ago
Imagine one orbiting each planet and what we can observe.
stsquad@lemmy.ml 14 hours ago
I can imagine it but it certainly won’t be practical to implement in our lifetimes. There are certainly some observatories that benefit from being based in space (optical and infrared) and even gravitational detectors such as laser interferometers. However aside from the wide capture area radio telescopes need large amounts of compute to separate the signal from the noise. The amount of data that needs to be processed makes space based radio observatories very hard to implement.
Maybe the dark side of the moon will make a decent observatory one day but we haven’t set foot on the place for decades, let alone built anything so complex.