If we can launch 1M satellites, how many telescopes can we launch?
I can understand European Southern Observatory (ESO) being concerned about becoming obsolete, but is the astronomy community as a whole concerned about the issue?
I understand there's currently around 722 observatories (some defunct, some are in orbit) based on this source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_astronomical_observato...
But perhaps there are others I am unaware of.
Quoted: Hainaut explains that "satellites, illuminated by the Sun, are much brighter than distant galaxies. When a satellite crosses what we observe, it makes a bright streak on our image, zapping whatever is behind it."
It sounds like this only affects visible light telescopes.
Nope - it's also an issue with radio telescopes, and radio arrays such as SKA
The Starlink constellation is leaking radio interference in bands it pinky promised it wouldn't and the issue got worse with successive generations despite assurances it would be addressed.
Such leakage isn't, of course, limited to dawn / dusk - it's ever present and ongoing.
30% sounds massive, but I wish they had given more detail to how much the images had been compromised.
I understand that can be tricky; cycling things on and off multiple times during orbital lifetime is more hardware stress inducing than leaving things static - but there isn't a lot of evidence of much effort being made on that problem aside from some insincere(?) lip service.
Space-based and ground-based telescopes are complementary to each other. You can't replace one out for the other.