Satellite Constellations Are an Existential Threat for Astronomy

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November 10, 2022

Dear Reader, This week, we're questioning the future of astronomy. Our lead story details how one of the field's biggest upcoming projects, the ground-based Vera Rubin Observatory, is struggling to adapt to a night sky increasingly cluttered by swarms of satellites. If, as some forecasts project, hundreds of thousands of satellites soon fill the heavens, the threat to astronomy could be existential. Astronomers are sounding the alarm—but are they too late? Elsewhere, we have stories on the geometry behind gerrymandering, our woeful lack of preparation for asteroid strikes, numerically extracting order from chaos, and more. Enjoy!

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics @LeeBillings

Astronomy Satellite Constellations Are an Existential Threat for Astronomy Growing swarms of spacecraft in orbit are outshining the stars, and scientists fear no one will do anything to stop it By Rebecca Boyle

Planetary Science NASA Asteroid Threat Practice Drill Shows We're Not Ready A trial of how government, NASA and local officials would deal with a space rock headed toward Earth revealed gaps in the plans By Matt Brady

Culture Every Story Is a Science Story Science applies to every important social issue. Saying so doesn't make us "unscientific" By The Editors

Sponsored Content By UAE USA United UAE and US partner to launch historic moon mission this month The first Arab mission to the moon is happening this month. Through UAE-US collaboration, the Emirates Lunar Mission will launch the Rashid Rover on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center this month. Discover more.

Mathematics Geometry Reveals the Tricks Behind Gerrymandering   Some voting districts are tilted intentionally toward one party or another—a factor in the midterms. Geometry plays a critical role in gerrymandering By Manon Bischoff

Space Exploration China's Space Station Is Almost Complete--How Will Scientists Use It? China's Tiangong orbital outpost will host more than 1,000 experiments, some of which will augment results from the International Space Station By Smriti Mallapaty,Nature magazine

Mathematics Ramsey Theory Extracts Order from Chaos when Sorting through Confusing Arrangements of Numbers Mathematician Frank Ramsey showed how to discover coherent patterns among a multitude of number groupings By Manon Bischoff

Evolution Geologic Activity Lets Microbes Mingle Deep Underground Tiny subterranean cracks can upend aquifer microbes' ecology By Joanna Thompson

Astronomy NASA Is Studying a Private Mission to Boost Hubble's Orbit. Is It Worth the Risk? SpaceX and the entrepreneur Jared Isaacman are pursuing a plan to rescue the iconic Hubble Space Telescope from a fiery plunge into Earth's atmosphere By Irene Klotz

QUOTE OF THE DAY "It is somewhere in the range of 'very bad' to 'terrible.'" Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, on the threat that satellite constellations pose for astronomy

FROM THE ARCHIVE Are We Doing Enough to Protect Earth from Asteroids? Scientists lost one of their best tools with the demise of the Arecibo telescope By Sarah Scoles | June 2021

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