A team of researchers has studied the impact of SpaceX's growing Starlink satellite constellation on the work of astronomers.
As SpaceX sends another rocket to space this week on a mission to expand its Starlink constellation to around 2,000 satellites, astronomers are poring over a newly released report assessing the satellites’ impact on deep space observations.
To assess their impact, a team led by former Caltech researcher Przemek Mróz studied archival images captured during twilight by the Zwicky Transient Facility at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory near San Diego. We found that twilight observations are particularly affected: a fraction of streaked images has increased from less than 0.5% in late 2019 to 18% in August 2021. Once SpaceX deploys 10,000 Starlinks, essentially all ZTF images taken during twilight may be affected. pic.twitter.com/5f8tKaSHlk However, study co-author Professor Tom Prince of Caltech noted that a single streak of light from a Starlink satellite affected less than one-tenth of a percent of the pixels in a ZTF image.
In 2020, SpaceX chief Elon Musk said he wanted to work with astronomers to ensure that the Starlink satellites didn’t interfere with their work.
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