4 ms·

Some scientific endeavors can be paused and maybe later relaunched, if funding has not dried up and temporarily-worthless machinery has not been left to rot. B

Some scientific endeavors can be paused and maybe later relaunched, if funding has not dried up and temporarily-worthless machinery has not been left to rot. But stuff like mitigating the constant threat of big enough objects showing up on a collision course with earth should not be paused until those eye-catchers fall out of the sky. If there is something coming at us that can wipe out more than the stock price of one particularly space-enthusiastic company, we should like to know within a time period appropriate for our current planetary defense capabilities. Which will surely improve, over time - so maybe we can pollute the sky, later.

Legend2440 3mo ago
>the constant threat of big enough objects showing up on a collision course with earth I don't really think this is a serious risk. This is a once-in-a-million-years kind of event. Also, asteroid detection is not seriously affected by satellites. We can easily tell the difference between a moving satellite and a moving asteroid because of their speed.
- edelbitter 3mo ago
  We might have even seen the Chelyabinsk one coming, with current tech.. if only it had been coming at us from a slightly less bright direction. That one was probably in the once-in-a-hundred-years category.
  - m4rtink 3mo ago
    That's exactly the thing space asteroid hunting telescopes solve - you can put them insuch a heliocentric orbit that they can watch for those asteroids coming from the direction of the sun.
- throw0101a 3mo ago
  > I don't really think this is a serious risk. This is a once-in-a-million-years kind of event. Perhaps the last event was one million years ago and we are now (proverbially) 'due'. > The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the belief that an independent and equally probable outcome which happened less frequently than expected is more likely to happen in the future (or vice versa). * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy It's like people who say "it sure is strange that we had a 'once-in-a-century flood' two years in a row": that's not how odds/probabilities work. * https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/we-had-a-100-year-flood-two-years-a-row-how-can-be https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/we-had-a-100-year-flood-two-years-...
  - KeplerBoy 3mo ago
    > It's like people who say "it sure is strange that we had a 'once-in-a-century flood' two years in a row": that's not how odds/probabilities work. That usually refers to climate change and the fact that the odds have changed against our favor.
  - ajam1507 3mo ago
    > Perhaps the last event was one million years ago and we are now (proverbially) 'due'. Ironically this is a great example of the gambler's fallacy.
    - throw0101a 3mo ago
      Hence the use of "proverbially" and "due" being in quotation marks.
- retrochameleon 3mo ago
  Asteroid detection is certainly affected by satellites. The ever increasing number of satellites makes observations that normally detect asteroids very difficult. It is very easy to miss asteroids we would have seen otherwise if not for satellites giving off glare, reflections, and light. We don't just look for asteroids coming directly towards earth, we keep track of all sorts of large objects and their orbits in our solar system. The tracking authority is usually the IAUC Minor Planet Center.
xadhominemx 3mo ago
Is that sort of research unavoidably impaired by a more crowded night sky? Or do we just have to spend more to collect the same quality of data from more or better terrestrial observatories?
m4rtink 3mo ago
[dead]
anabab 3mo ago
The year is 2026. Surely the orbits of all the satellites are known well enough, and optics are modelled well enough for telescopes to know which few pixels to ignore at any given moment?
- jfim 3mo ago
  Light scatters in the atmosphere, it's the same reason you can shine a laser beam and see it even though the light should be collimated. With enough sources of light, you end up with more background light pollution.
- privong 3mo ago
  There's at least two issues with this line of thinking: 1. many astronomical observations are long integrations (many minutes of open shutter) and you often cannot read out the pixels during the exposure. So you can't selectively ignore pixels on a "by moment" basis. And with enough satellites, enough pixels could be affected to render an entire image effectively unusable 2. It seems you're thinking only about optical astronomy. There's also a ton of radio/millimeter wave astronomy that's done from the ground. Satellites have radio-wave downlinks that can be powerful enough to destroy the electronics used in radio astronomy receivers. The US's National Radio Astronomy Observatory has been working on data sharing with Starlink to mitigate this, but it's basically up to companies to agree to work together. Other satellites / companies don't engage in this coordination and so some radio telescopes need to go to a "safe"/stow position to protect the electronics. This costs valuable observing time.
  - bazodedo 3mo ago
    How about putting our astronomy experiments into space as well? There'd be no light / em pollution there, as well as no atmospheric interference etc. and, 24/7 free power courtesy of our sun. Id expect orbital observatories to be superior to ground based ones, thinking of Webb, Hubble. I suppose the only downside is cost. So, the actual problem, is how to tax the shared resource that is our LEO. Aside from that, wed also want to incentivize not leaving space debris in orbit. Require insurance, and perhaps rent for orbital trajectories? But, without working international order, theres no way thats gonna happen...
ACCount37 3mo ago
This is why we have things like NEO Surveyor planned: space-based space rock detection. That "particularly space-enthusiastic company" is a big part of why we're in a decent place for orbital defense right now. SpaceX has a lot of launchers, and a steady enough launch cadence that they can put a payload up there really fast, if there is a reason to hurry. Before, there was a very real risk of having to wait months just to get a launcher lined up - now, that's not nearly as much of a problem.

Legend2440 3mo ago

>the constant threat of big enough objects showing up on a collision course with earth I don't really think this is a serious risk. This is a once-in-a-million-years kind of event. Also, asteroid detection is not seriously affected by satellites. We can easily tell the difference between a moving satellite and a moving asteroid because of their speed.

edelbitter 3mo ago
We might have even seen the Chelyabinsk one coming, with current tech.. if only it had been coming at us from a slightly less bright direction. That one was probably in the once-in-a-hundred-years category.
- m4rtink 3mo ago
  That's exactly the thing space asteroid hunting telescopes solve - you can put them insuch a heliocentric orbit that they can watch for those asteroids coming from the direction of the sun.
throw0101a 3mo ago
> I don't really think this is a serious risk. This is a once-in-a-million-years kind of event. Perhaps the last event was one million years ago and we are now (proverbially) 'due'. > The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the belief that an independent and equally probable outcome which happened less frequently than expected is more likely to happen in the future (or vice versa). * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy It's like people who say "it sure is strange that we had a 'once-in-a-century flood' two years in a row": that's not how odds/probabilities work. * https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/we-had-a-100-year-flood-two-years-a-row-how-can-be https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/we-had-a-100-year-flood-two-years-...
- KeplerBoy 3mo ago
  > It's like people who say "it sure is strange that we had a 'once-in-a-century flood' two years in a row": that's not how odds/probabilities work. That usually refers to climate change and the fact that the odds have changed against our favor.
- ajam1507 3mo ago
  > Perhaps the last event was one million years ago and we are now (proverbially) 'due'. Ironically this is a great example of the gambler's fallacy.
  - throw0101a 3mo ago
    Hence the use of "proverbially" and "due" being in quotation marks.
retrochameleon 3mo ago
Asteroid detection is certainly affected by satellites. The ever increasing number of satellites makes observations that normally detect asteroids very difficult. It is very easy to miss asteroids we would have seen otherwise if not for satellites giving off glare, reflections, and light. We don't just look for asteroids coming directly towards earth, we keep track of all sorts of large objects and their orbits in our solar system. The tracking authority is usually the IAUC Minor Planet Center.

xadhominemx 3mo ago

Is that sort of research unavoidably impaired by a more crowded night sky? Or do we just have to spend more to collect the same quality of data from more or better terrestrial observatories?

m4rtink 3mo ago

[dead]

anabab 3mo ago

The year is 2026. Surely the orbits of all the satellites are known well enough, and optics are modelled well enough for telescopes to know which few pixels to ignore at any given moment?

jfim 3mo ago
Light scatters in the atmosphere, it's the same reason you can shine a laser beam and see it even though the light should be collimated. With enough sources of light, you end up with more background light pollution.
privong 3mo ago
There's at least two issues with this line of thinking: 1. many astronomical observations are long integrations (many minutes of open shutter) and you often cannot read out the pixels during the exposure. So you can't selectively ignore pixels on a "by moment" basis. And with enough satellites, enough pixels could be affected to render an entire image effectively unusable 2. It seems you're thinking only about optical astronomy. There's also a ton of radio/millimeter wave astronomy that's done from the ground. Satellites have radio-wave downlinks that can be powerful enough to destroy the electronics used in radio astronomy receivers. The US's National Radio Astronomy Observatory has been working on data sharing with Starlink to mitigate this, but it's basically up to companies to agree to work together. Other satellites / companies don't engage in this coordination and so some radio telescopes need to go to a "safe"/stow position to protect the electronics. This costs valuable observing time.
- bazodedo 3mo ago
  How about putting our astronomy experiments into space as well? There'd be no light / em pollution there, as well as no atmospheric interference etc. and, 24/7 free power courtesy of our sun. Id expect orbital observatories to be superior to ground based ones, thinking of Webb, Hubble. I suppose the only downside is cost. So, the actual problem, is how to tax the shared resource that is our LEO. Aside from that, wed also want to incentivize not leaving space debris in orbit. Require insurance, and perhaps rent for orbital trajectories? But, without working international order, theres no way thats gonna happen...

ACCount37 3mo ago

This is why we have things like NEO Surveyor planned: space-based space rock detection. That "particularly space-enthusiastic company" is a big part of why we're in a decent place for orbital defense right now. SpaceX has a lot of launchers, and a steady enough launch cadence that they can put a payload up there really fast, if there is a reason to hurry. Before, there was a very real risk of having to wait months just to get a launcher lined up - now, that's not nearly as much of a problem.