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I'm not sure I buy into the sensationalism behind this story. We're tracking billions[0] of asteroids in interplanetary space, and you say that it's a data-proc

I'm not sure I buy into the sensationalism behind this story. We're tracking billions[0] of asteroids in interplanetary space, and you say that it's a data-processing hazard that the half-dozen or so deep-space anthropogenic objects aren't submitted to a mandatory international database for de-confliction? That doesn't pass the smell test. [0] https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/01/1108643/vera-c-rubin-observatory-telescope-cosmos-universe-space-digital-camera/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/01/1108643/vera-c-r...

schiffern 2y ago
I think the issue is that there isn't such a "mandatory international database for de-confliction."
philipwhiuk 2y ago
This is not the first time it has happened and often they are mistakenly classified as NEOs. https://x.com/planet4589/status/1638916566644576259 https://x.com/planet4589/status/1638916566644576259
- tbrownaw 2y ago
  > mistakenly classified as NEOs. Is it not an Object that approaches to Near the Earth?
  - GMoromisato 2y ago
    That's not how definitions work. The IAU defines what "NEO" means and it excludes artificial objects: https://www.iau.org/public/themes/neo/ https://www.iau.org/public/themes/neo/ You may complain that you should be able to derive the definition from the name, but then all names would be as long as their definition, defeating the purpose.
teruakohatu 2y ago
> I'm not sure I buy into the sensationalism behind this story It does seem odd there is an entire article about a single mislabeled-and-then-caught object in a large database that probably has many mislabeled objects that have never been caught. The position of the object is well documented [1] [2]. It surprises me that there are not some very basic checks done on new objects against other databases. All that said, I do feel for astronomers, the crazy tempo of rocket launches and satellites makes their job a lot harder and its only going to get harder still but maybe offset by Super Heavy enabling larger and cheaper space telescopes. [1] https://theskylive.com/roadster-info https://theskylive.com/roadster-info [2] https://where-is-tesla-roadster.space/live https://where-is-tesla-roadster.space/live
- Retric 2y ago
  There’s not a lot of man made objects floating in deep space. DeltaV to get outside earths gravity well is just extremely high.
  - LiamPowell 2y ago
    There's at least 72 according to [1], which does not include upper stages from unmanned missions. You could likely query all of them that have been found from Horizons, but I don't know how to do so off the top of my head. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_in_heliocentric_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_in_...
    - tumnus 2y ago
      72 out of around 128 million is about %0.005 which indeed does not seem like a lot.
      - lazide 2y ago
        Just enough to make it an irritating and bug prone edge case, you can never quite ignore, but never actually gets handled right for long. Sounds about right.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > It surprises me that there are not some very basic checks done on new objects against other databases. Hopefully it will be now. Maybe, like with many human endeavors, it kind of fell through the cracks, with everyone independently thinking it's someone else's responsibility and not communicating, until some journalist found out and forced everyone to communicate about it.
grajaganDev 2y ago
>I'm not sure I buy into the sensationalism behind this story. Agreed - Elon gets clicks especially given his recent "involvement" with the US government.
- vkou 2y ago
  When you, as a lobbyist and supplier, are getting an office built for you in the white house, that's a little bit closer than being 'involved'.
simne 2y ago
> We're tracking billions[0] of asteroids This is exaggeration. Really, this type of astronomy is very underfunded, so we're just approach state, when will track just most dangerous objects, which number is just about thousand, just because of budget limitation.
fastball 2y ago
Honestly "astronomers" have really started to annoy me, which surprises me because I love space and astronomy and star-gazing and such. I have bought multiple personal telescopes over the years, so I guess I even qualify as an amateur astronomer. But lately it seems I disagree with astronomers on any intersection of astronomy and politics. I put "astronomers" in quotes because of course I realize that "not all astronomers", but the consensus does seem to be there. > Satellite internet constellations that provide affordable internet to millions of people bad because it might hurt terrrestrial astronomy. > Infrastructure projects should not be built in sites that are good for astronomy because astronomy is apparently more important than energy and resource production[1]. > Much ado about nothing because some amateur astronomers thought a Tesla Roadster was an asteroid. Implications that companies are irresonsible / direlict in their duty for not ensuring that astronomers are well-informed. Just overall I've been getting the feeling over the last couple years that "astronomers" have a severely inflated sense of self-importance. Or maybe I am the problem and I am under-valuing astronomy (or over-valuing everything else). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42668953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42668953
- kanbara 2y ago
  it’s cheaper and more permanent to just lay fibre and copper to provide internet. we don’t need 3000 satellites launched every few years to do so. i think you’re overinflating elon’s importance. (not that he designs and builds starlink, anyway)
  - lazide 2y ago
    Permanent yes. But cheaper? A lot of the places served (as in actual customers) by starlink are in truly remote and difficult to reach places. I know someone who uses it in the middle of private land surrounded by national forest, 5+ miles from the nearest paved road. It doesn’t get electricity, and the last quote he was able to get was for $250k+ to attempt to run power from the local utility. But now with Solar…. And he’s not the only one in that region. Using starlink for dense urban environments? Yeah that makes no sense. It also possibly doesn’t make any sense in suburban environments either. But dispersed or remote areas? Pretty awesome. LTE is sometimes a competitor in those situations, but there are a lot of people in those environments that don’t have good line of sight to a cell, but do get plenty of open sky, and Starlink is far superior for them than any other solution. LTE over these remote areas is also a major capex, and involves a lot of environmental impact. Hughes/Geo satellite sucks in both latency and bandwidth. Most LTE data plans are also expensive for this type of thing, as any RV’er will tell you. In many ways, this solves the ‘everyone must live in the big city to make good money’ problem, if coupled with remote work.
nwallin 2y ago
There are only a little over a million known asteroids. The link you provided is saying that the Vera Rubin Observatory is expected to find billions of galaxies, and says nothing about how many asteroids it is expected to find. https://catalina.lpl.arizona.edu/faq/how-many-asteroids-are-there https://catalina.lpl.arizona.edu/faq/how-many-asteroids-are-...

schiffern 2y ago

I think the issue is that there isn't such a "mandatory international database for de-confliction."

philipwhiuk 2y ago

This is not the first time it has happened and often they are mistakenly classified as NEOs. https://x.com/planet4589/status/1638916566644576259 https://x.com/planet4589/status/1638916566644576259

tbrownaw 2y ago
> mistakenly classified as NEOs. Is it not an Object that approaches to Near the Earth?
- GMoromisato 2y ago
  That's not how definitions work. The IAU defines what "NEO" means and it excludes artificial objects: https://www.iau.org/public/themes/neo/ https://www.iau.org/public/themes/neo/ You may complain that you should be able to derive the definition from the name, but then all names would be as long as their definition, defeating the purpose.

teruakohatu 2y ago

> I'm not sure I buy into the sensationalism behind this story It does seem odd there is an entire article about a single mislabeled-and-then-caught object in a large database that probably has many mislabeled objects that have never been caught. The position of the object is well documented [1] [2]. It surprises me that there are not some very basic checks done on new objects against other databases. All that said, I do feel for astronomers, the crazy tempo of rocket launches and satellites makes their job a lot harder and its only going to get harder still but maybe offset by Super Heavy enabling larger and cheaper space telescopes. [1] https://theskylive.com/roadster-info https://theskylive.com/roadster-info [2] https://where-is-tesla-roadster.space/live https://where-is-tesla-roadster.space/live

Retric 2y ago
There’s not a lot of man made objects floating in deep space. DeltaV to get outside earths gravity well is just extremely high.
- LiamPowell 2y ago
  There's at least 72 according to [1], which does not include upper stages from unmanned missions. You could likely query all of them that have been found from Horizons, but I don't know how to do so off the top of my head. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_in_heliocentric_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_in_...
  - tumnus 2y ago
    72 out of around 128 million is about %0.005 which indeed does not seem like a lot.
    - lazide 2y ago
      Just enough to make it an irritating and bug prone edge case, you can never quite ignore, but never actually gets handled right for long. Sounds about right.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
> It surprises me that there are not some very basic checks done on new objects against other databases. Hopefully it will be now. Maybe, like with many human endeavors, it kind of fell through the cracks, with everyone independently thinking it's someone else's responsibility and not communicating, until some journalist found out and forced everyone to communicate about it.

grajaganDev 2y ago

>I'm not sure I buy into the sensationalism behind this story. Agreed - Elon gets clicks especially given his recent "involvement" with the US government.

vkou 2y ago
When you, as a lobbyist and supplier, are getting an office built for you in the white house, that's a little bit closer than being 'involved'.

simne 2y ago

> We're tracking billions[0] of asteroids This is exaggeration. Really, this type of astronomy is very underfunded, so we're just approach state, when will track just most dangerous objects, which number is just about thousand, just because of budget limitation.

fastball 2y ago

Honestly "astronomers" have really started to annoy me, which surprises me because I love space and astronomy and star-gazing and such. I have bought multiple personal telescopes over the years, so I guess I even qualify as an amateur astronomer. But lately it seems I disagree with astronomers on any intersection of astronomy and politics. I put "astronomers" in quotes because of course I realize that "not all astronomers", but the consensus does seem to be there. > Satellite internet constellations that provide affordable internet to millions of people bad because it might hurt terrrestrial astronomy. > Infrastructure projects should not be built in sites that are good for astronomy because astronomy is apparently more important than energy and resource production[1]. > Much ado about nothing because some amateur astronomers thought a Tesla Roadster was an asteroid. Implications that companies are irresonsible / direlict in their duty for not ensuring that astronomers are well-informed. Just overall I've been getting the feeling over the last couple years that "astronomers" have a severely inflated sense of self-importance. Or maybe I am the problem and I am under-valuing astronomy (or over-valuing everything else). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42668953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42668953

kanbara 2y ago
it’s cheaper and more permanent to just lay fibre and copper to provide internet. we don’t need 3000 satellites launched every few years to do so. i think you’re overinflating elon’s importance. (not that he designs and builds starlink, anyway)
- lazide 2y ago
  Permanent yes. But cheaper? A lot of the places served (as in actual customers) by starlink are in truly remote and difficult to reach places. I know someone who uses it in the middle of private land surrounded by national forest, 5+ miles from the nearest paved road. It doesn’t get electricity, and the last quote he was able to get was for $250k+ to attempt to run power from the local utility. But now with Solar…. And he’s not the only one in that region. Using starlink for dense urban environments? Yeah that makes no sense. It also possibly doesn’t make any sense in suburban environments either. But dispersed or remote areas? Pretty awesome. LTE is sometimes a competitor in those situations, but there are a lot of people in those environments that don’t have good line of sight to a cell, but do get plenty of open sky, and Starlink is far superior for them than any other solution. LTE over these remote areas is also a major capex, and involves a lot of environmental impact. Hughes/Geo satellite sucks in both latency and bandwidth. Most LTE data plans are also expensive for this type of thing, as any RV’er will tell you. In many ways, this solves the ‘everyone must live in the big city to make good money’ problem, if coupled with remote work.

nwallin 2y ago

There are only a little over a million known asteroids. The link you provided is saying that the Vera Rubin Observatory is expected to find billions of galaxies, and says nothing about how many asteroids it is expected to find. https://catalina.lpl.arizona.edu/faq/how-many-asteroids-are-there https://catalina.lpl.arizona.edu/faq/how-many-asteroids-are-...