Elon Musk has gone under the skin of night sky fans, astrophotographers and professional astronomers building his cosmic internet constellation. His devices will change the sky beyond recognition.
Astronomy amateurs have prepared a very interesting animation, thanks to which we can learn in a very vivid way what the night sky will look like when 12,000 Starlink microsatellites from SpaceX appear in orbit. Elon Musk's company has so far sent over 500 devices into space, but in total there may be up to 30,000 of them. Other companies are also planning to build their constellations. Therefore, we can expect up to 100,000 of such devices in orbit over the next 15 years.
Engineers have developed a technology to reduce glare generated in Starlinks, thanks to which the devices are theoretically not to interfere with observations of objects in space carried out by ground-based telescopes. However, experts believe that this may not be enough. The European Space Agency has even published its report on this issue
Although the new microsatellites will already have the VisorSat anti-glare system, the 500 existing ones do not have one, and thousands of new devices can effectively cover the observed objects with such a high density. Elon Musk said that humanity needs to develop and the cosmic internet is one such path. It will connect all inhabitants of the Earth and provide them with access to a great treasury of knowledge.
NASA scientists believe that the solution to this could be a plan to build powerful telescopes in Earth's orbit, in the deep space, or on the Moon and Mars. Such objects are to spring up like mushrooms in the future by means of e.g. robots. Interestingly, NASA recently presented a project to build a radio telescope on a part of the Moon that is not visible from Earth. The device is to be built in the 20s of the 21st century and will be built by robots that will arrive there with manned missions after 2024.
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