Nearly all images from some space telescopes in low Earth orbit could be affected by light from man-made satellites as the number of communication spacecraft surges, new research led by NASA has found.<\/p>\n
The study shows that nearly 40 percent of the Hubble Space Telescope\u2019s images could suffer interference from the proliferation of communication satellites, which are set to explode in number in a few years.<\/p>\n
In 2019, the number of satellites orbiting the Earth was around 2,000. Now it is around 15,000, mainly because launch costs have dropped dramatically. The number could balloon to a jaw-dropping 560,000 by the end of the 2030s if currently filed satellite constellation plans are carried out.<\/p>\n
NASA research scientist Alejandro Borlaff and his team used a database of planned launches to study the effect of communications satellites on low Earth orbit space telescopes; earlier studies had focused on ground-based astronomy.<\/p>\n
Included in the study was NASA\u2019s SPHEREx space telescope, the European Space Agency\u2019s proposed ARRAKIHS system, and China\u2019s planned Xuntian space telescope, as well as Hubble, all of which orbit at altitudes between about 450 and 800 kilometers. The findings suggest about 39.6 percent of Hubble\u2019s images and 96 percent of images from the other three telescopes would be affected by interference from satellites. Meanwhile, the average number of satellites observed per exposure is estimated to be 2.14 for Hubble, 5.64 for SPHEREx, 69 for ARRAKIHS, and 92 for Xuntian, if the planned constellations are completed.<\/p>\n