Hubble In Trouble As Satellite Trails Start Affecting It Too
Woodherd writes:
Hubble In Trouble As Satellite Trails Start Affecting It Too
The idea that we can save astronomy from satellite interference by putting telescopes in space has run into an obstacle, or more precisely 8,500.
A study of images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope finds that more than one in 40 are crossed by satellite trails. In some cases these interfere with the science, wasting the exceptionally valuable time spent taking the image. Although the affected proportion is small, it's growing, refuting the claim we can solve the problems satellites are causing for astronomers by putting the large telescopes in space.
Spotting a satellite was once rare enough to be an exciting addition to a night under the stars away from the city lights. Today, it's become an annoying impediment to enjoying the beauty of everything else. It's not only wrong to wish on space hardware, if you start you'll never do anything else.
For astronomers the problem is not just a loss of beauty. It's becoming increasingly common for satellite trails to destroy images, often ruining time precious time a scientist had to fight hard to get and holding up important research. Although this issue is getting considerable attention, a new paper in Nature Astronomy addresses an aspect that has been largely ignored.
Elon Musk, among others, has responded to concerns about satellites' effect on astronomy by saying, "We need to move telescopes to orbit anyway", but that's not necessarily a complete solution.
The Hubble Space Telescope orbits at 540 kilometers (340 miles), which is above the majority of objects humanity has put in orbit, but there are 8,460 objects more than 10 centimeters (4 inches) across above it. A team led by Dr Sandor Kruk of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics recruited citizen scientists through the Hubble Asteroid Hunter project, to study Hubble's archive from 2002 to 2021 and distinguish satellite trails from asteroids.
Journal Reference:
Kruk, Sandor, Garcia-Martin, Pablo, Popescu, Marcel, et al. The impact of satellite trails on Hubble Space Telescope observations [open], Nature Astronomy (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-01903-3)
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