How many man-made satellites surround Earth? Even your wildest guess will fall short

According to a surprising report issued by Space.com, companies around the world are set to send huge numbers of satellites into space to offer worldwide high internet connectivity in the next couple years. And this connectivity comes at the risk of the space's cleanliness. It will taint cosmic studies and pollute the skies.

A group of researchers has also analyzed the consequences of these spacecraft and studied potential mitigating techniques. They've projected that astronomy will end in a catastrophic situation. The mega-constellations that will launch into Earth orbit in the next few years include Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper, and SatNet. Each company will have its own extremely high internet connectivity system.

How do these satellites affect the astronomer’s research?

The enormous constellations will be a tremendous inconvenience to an astronomer using the world's largest telescopes to capture the lightest objects in the sky. Those in support of these mega-constellations of orbiting satellites believe that the satellites' high altitudes will lessen their impact on astronomy, and that only particular types of observation programs will be jeopardized.

What can be done to tackle this problem?

Researchers discovered that reducing the surface area of satellites and solar panels, such as SpaceX's Starlink VisorSat programme to darken their satellites, is the best technique. The alternative option is to keep track of constellation motions and try to time their sightings to coincide with the specified time. However, because firms constantly change the orbits of their satellites, this strategy necessitates a great deal of cooperation.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, there are presently over 3,300 functioning artificial satellites in Orbit around earth. In Gen 1 launches, SpaceX's Starlink will control 11,926 satellites. It will launch 30,000 more into orbit in Gen 2. Another preventative method is to remove the satellite tracks from the photographs later. However, because spectrometers don't take pictures, it's difficult to identify whether a spectrum has been damaged by a satellite track.

Space junk poses danger?

The Department of Defense's global Space Surveillance Network (SSN) sensors track over 27,000 pieces of space waste. Much more waste occurs in the near-Earth space environment, which is too small to be tracked but significant enough to endanger space travel and robotic operations.

Because both the debris and the spacecraft are moving at such high speeds, even a small piece colliding with a spacecraft might cause major problems. According to NASA, the growing population of space debris poses a greater risk to all spacecraft.

This applies to the International Space Station as well as other human-capable spacecraft, such as SpaceX's Crew Dragon. At some point, a member satellite in a satellite constellation will have a problem that cannot be resolved. The fragment is, then, eventually discarded into space.

Visible impacts

Interfering satellite trails created by Starlink satellites could lead astronomers to lose approximately half of each photograph. The extra light from the satellites will cause problems for not only narrow-field telescopes, but also wide-field telescopes.

By the time all of the satellites are launched, the situation will have been damaged significantly, and astronomers will be attempting to perform astronomy.

On May 25, 2019, the image displays diagonal lines created by reflection of light by a group of 25 Starlink satellites travelling through the field of view of an observatory at Lowell Observatory in Arizona.

In other circumstances, the entire image must be wasted, which might cost huge amounts of money in processing time and electricity. This is just the beginning of the mega constellation era; more satellites may be added in the future.