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‘Worst nightmare’: Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites could blind radio telescopes (www.science.org)
submitted 12 hours ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 0 points 11 hours ago

And possibly also cause Kessler syndrome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

[-] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 19 points 10 hours ago

No, it couldn't. That's pure misinformation.

Kessler syndrome is only a possibility in orbits high enough that atmospheric drag is negligible. Starlink, by design, is at an altitude where the atmosphere is still thick enough to bring any debris or old satellites down to earth in a timely fashion rather than building up like Kessler syndrome requires. (To be clear, the air is still so thin that you'd need sensitive instruments to detect it at all. It's just enough to produce a tiny amount of drag, which adds up over weeks or months to lower the debris' orbit so that it meets thicker air)

There are plenty of perfectly legitimate objections you can raise to starlink without resorting to Kessler syndrome

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 7 points 10 hours ago
[-] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 1 points 1 hour ago

It's not possible with these satellites as they're too low in orbit and can only stay up for 3-5 years before burning up in the atmosphere. It doesn't matter if you can find people to agree with you as I could easily find a dozen links from people claiming the earth is flat.

[-] card797@champserver.net 1 points 24 minutes ago

Well, where are the dozen links?

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 57 minutes ago)

Except that my links quote scientists.

For example:

"Right now, the number of maneuvers is growing exponentially," Hugh Lewis, a professor of astronautics at the University of Southampton in the U.K. and a leading expert on the impact of megaconstellations on orbital safety, told Space.com. "It's been doubling every six months, and the problem with exponential trends is that they get to very large numbers very quickly."

Data compiled by Lewis shows that, in the first half of 2021, Starlink satellites conducted 2,219 collision-avoidance maneuvers. The number grew to 3,333 in the following six-month period ending in December 2021 and then doubled to 6,873 between December 2021 and June 2022. In the second half of 2022, SpaceX had to alter the paths of its satellites 13,612 times to avoid potential collisions. In the latest report to the FCC, the company declared 25,299 collision-avoidance maneuvers over the past six months, with every satellite having been made to move an average of 6 times.

"Right now, every six months, the number of maneuvers that are being made doubles," said Lewis. "It has gone up by a factor of 10 in just two years, and if you project that out, you'll have 50,000 within the next six-month period, then 100,000 within the next, then 200,000, and so on."

But a professor of astronautics is basically the same as a flat Earther, am I right?

Also, I literally included an academic paper.

this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
117 points (96.8% liked)

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