sundogplanets

sundogplanets, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to random

I just had to update my numbers for a lecture, so here's your periodic reminder: Starlink is now 55% of ALL active satellites in orbit.

And given the recent news about that awful billionaire unilaterally deciding to cut of Starlink internet access to parts of the world whenever he wants to, this is extra important to share. Why did our governments effectively gift Low Earth Orbit to one awful dude? This is so bad.

sundogplanets, 6 months ago to random

COOL! The spicy article I wrote about satellite pollution is FINALLY published! "Bright satellites are disrupting astronomy research worldwide" in Nature News & Views.

This article required weeks of back-and-forth with the editor, the editor-in-chief, and Nature's lawyers, so I hope that means it's a good one.

During this process, I learned that satellite companies are so powerful and litigious that even giant publishers like Nature are terrified of getting sued. Which is...rather worrying.

sundogplanets, 3 months ago to random

Watch this satellite obliterate the Kuiper Belt object moving through this set of images.

The dumb satellite is so bright that our auto-detect software threw out the whole stack, because it destroyed the average brightness.

It pisses me off to no end that my taxpayer-funded telescope time is now less and less effective because of one for-profit private company.

(P.S. software dudes: please don't try to mansplain workarounds, believe me, a LOT of astronomers are working hard on this)

A gif of a Kuiper Belt object slowly moving across a set of images. It just looks like a fuzzy dot. Toward the end of the sequence, there's a super bright diagonal line that covers up the moving dot - that was a satellite.

sundogplanets, 7 months ago to random

Time to update my satellite pollution talk.

There are ~500 more Starlink satellites today than when I gave this talk in July.

4,924 Starlinks in orbit now (56% of the total 8,728 active satellites in orbit).

Just your periodic reminder that one private company owned by one pretty awful dude effectively controls outer space now.

sundogplanets, 3 months ago to random

I just looked up Voyager 1's current position for a talk and saw something wild: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/

The distance between Earth and Voyager 1 is actually decreasing right now (even though the distance between Voyager 1 and the Sun is increasing). A website bug?

Nope! Earth moves really fast around the Sun. Right now we're moving faster toward Voyager 1 than it's flying away from us

Earth orbits at 30 km/s around the Sun, Voyager is going "only" 17 km/s. I love orbital dynamics!

sundogplanets, 7 months ago to random

Not worried enough about corporate over-development of orbit yet? New article: companies have now filed asking for a total of ONE MILLION satellites: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi4639

Non-paywalled version here: https://www.outerspaceinstitute.ca/docs/One%20million%20(paper)%20satellites%20-%20Accepted%20Version%20.pdf

There is no way we can have anywhere near one million satellites in orbit without going into full Kessler Syndrome and destroying everything in orbit - making satellite science, communication, and interplanetary exploration impossible for decades.

sundogplanets, 30 days ago to random

I am talking o a reporter about this in a couple hours: https://regina.ctvnews.ca/from-outer-space-sask-farmers-baffled-after-discovering-strange-wreckage-in-field-1.6880353

This is about an hour away from my farm, so this'll be a fun conversation, and yet another great opportunity to tell a lot of people about what a huge problem we have with unregulated commercialization of orbit. (Also I just redid my slides for my public talk next week, this is going in!)

sundogplanets, 23 days ago to random

Here comes a thread on light pollution from satellites, with a concrete action that you all can take to help push for regulation of satellites in orbit!

Astronomers have been worried about light pollution from satellites (if you've been following me for more than 24 hours, you've perhaps heard a bit about this). Astronomers spent SO much time and effort begging and pleading with Starlink to make their satellites fainter, with mixed results.

sundogplanets, 30 days ago to random

Every chance I've had to interact with satellite operators in conferences, I've asked them about their plans for dealing with solar storms (I'm particularly worried about Starlink, which requires dozens of maneuvers per day to avoid collisions. What if a large fraction shuts down for a few hours?!)

The universal response to my inquiries has been "Don't worry about that, it'll be fine!"

I guess we're going to find out very soon. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

sundogplanets, 8 months ago to random

It just amazes me that people keep expecting me to fly all over the place for conferences and seminar lectures. I've gotten uninvited to 2 conferences in the last couple weeks by politely asking if I could give the invited talk remotely instead. This is dumb, we need to change.

sundogplanets, 10 months ago to random

Meet our new farm guardian animal, who came pre-named, with probably the best name ever for a llama.

Introducing...

Barack O-llama.

(I have an amazing story about him arriving here, I will share later when I have more time)

sundogplanets, 6 months ago to random

Tomorrow I'm teaching this paper https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2022.0029 about how probably every civilization on every planet marches faster and faster toward burnout, UNLESS they realize that collapse is coming and radically restructure.

This is a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox: most civilizations don't last long, and the ones that do are undetectable: "A sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Nature."

Welp, my mind is totally blown for the day. Time to go snuggle some animals.

sundogplanets, 4 months ago to random

Really great (absolutely terrifying) research by plasma physicist @carlysagan is being highlighted today on https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=02&month=02&year=2024

Is there anything that tens of thousands of disposable satellites won't completely fuck up?

Satellite companies need to stop launching until they fund research on the upper atmosphere and magnetosphere(!) and show their plans are safe (which...is probably impossible since they aren't safe).

sundogplanets, 2 months ago to random

There are currently 5,591 Starlink satellites in orbit, launched in the last 5 years https://planet4589.org/space/con/conlist.html

There are 5,595 known exoplanets https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/ discovered in the last 30 years

Starlink is about to have more sats in orbit than known exoplanets, and with each launch, make it harder to do astronomy research

Imagine what astronomy (or any part of science) could do with the shittons of money that have been spent on occupying (and likely soon destroying) low earth orbit?

sundogplanets, 2 months ago to random

I wrote an essay already about how sad I am that my love of rocket launches has been totally destroyed by SpaceX. https://theconversation.com/an-astronomers-lament-satellite-megaconstellations-are-ruining-space-exploration-215653

I can't get excited that they were successful today, I just can't.

sundogplanets, 4 months ago to random

In case you haven't gotten sick of hearing me talk about this issue, I was on CBC-Yukon this morning talking about satellite pollution: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-393-yukon-morning/clip/16034585-the-story-one-astronomers-battle-satellites

The short version: satellites are super annoying for astronomy, but are completely terrifying for what they might do to the atmosphere as they deorbit in large numbers (and we don't actually know what they'll do - that's the scary part.)

sundogplanets, 3 months ago to random

Heyyyyy I got my first interview request that specifically references a mastodon post I wrote!

The fediverse has hit some kind of critical mass of journalists! Hi, journalists!! Thank you!

sundogplanets, 4 months ago to random

I did not get a TED Fellowship. Perhaps not a big surprise since I've heard that awful billionaire that I hate goes to those things, and probably doesn't want to hear about how terrible tens of thousands of disposable satellites are for everything.

Thanks for coming to my not-TED talk.

sundogplanets, 6 months ago to random

Today I'm talking about the Fermi Paradox in my astro-for-physics-majors class (and I'll talk about it again on Friday in my astro 101 class).

It's a really simple question with completely terrifying/mind-blowing implications, first asked by Enrico Fermi (who, ironically, was one of the Manhattan project scientists...)

Our universe is 13.8 billion years old, our Galaxy is at least 10 billion years old, other planets are surely much older than Earth, with more time to involve intelligent life.