Starlink and Astronomers Are in a Light Pollution Standoff

There’s a space battle brewing just under our noses (and above our heads).

On one side are astronomers who use ground-based observatories to gather starlight from the depths of the universe. On the other are technologists, military planners and captains of industry who are rapidly cocooning our planet in ever growing swarms of starlight-spoiling satellites .

When a satellite passes through the view of a ground observatory, it can reflect sunlight back to the telescope, creating bright streaks in the resulting pictures that can obscure—or even masquerade as—astrophysical phenomena. This is especially problematic for state-of-the-art facilities such as the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory , which uses giant mirrors and the world’s largest digital camera to capture ultrahigh-resolution pa