Author: Tereza Pultarova

For decades, researchers have been monitoring armed conflict around the world by analyzing news reports and collecting oral testimonies. This approach, while valuable, has its limitations. A new study suggests that a satellite's view from above might fill the gaps in our understanding of the grim realities of war.

In 2017, the Myanmar Army murdered several hundred Muslim Rohingya civilians in the village of Chut Pyin near the country's western coast. Reports of the massacre in the settlement of about 2,000 reached the world through the testimonies of survivors who fled to neighboring Bangladesh. The massacre was part of a years-long campaign of brutality against the Muslim minority conducted by the Buddhist-run state. Satellite data later showed that houses in the predominantly Rohingya neighborhood were burned down by the Myanmar military during the atrocity, providing undeniable proof that the ethnic minority was targeted.

The incident is one of many demonstrating the advantage of adding views from space into conflict research, study lead author Valerie Sticher, a political science researcher at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, told Space.com.

"We have huge data sets about wars around the world going back 40 years," Sticher said. "But those datasets are based mostly on media reports. And these reports are not always available and not always reliable. Media can have biases and often focus only on certain types of violence."

For example, human reporters are more likely to focus on the numbers of people killed rather than the number of houses destroyed, she said. Satellites, on the other hand, provide a broad sweep over vast areas of land and, crucially, revisit the same location repeatedly. They can reveal patterns in conflicts and trends that could otherwise go undetected, while providing an overview of areas controlled by authoritarian regimes.

The researchers are now developing a methodology to integrate satellite observations into conflict research and create automated image analysis pipelines that would generate early warnings and alert the world to what's happening on the ground.

"Automated satellite data analysis would allow us to respond faster," said Sticher. "For example, in Myanmar, the area affected by ethnic cleansing was closed to independent journalists and investigators. Satellite data was the earliest reliable information to reach the outside world."

Hannes Mueller, a conflict researcher at the Spanish National Research Council, said that totalitarian governments can be very good at preventing information about atrocities from reaching the world. However, they can hardly fool satellites.

"In Myanmar, for example, when the military clears villages, they frequently kill everybody in those villages," he said. "Then you don't have any eyewitnesses for you to find out what's going on. But they usually also destroy the entire village, and so the violence leaves a mark from space."

Mueller was not involved in the new study but has used satellites in his work since the conflict in Syria in the early 2010s. He lauds the new paper for trying to "plot the road" for a more systematic integration of satellite data into conflict-monitoring data sets.

"Imagine we could generate a data stack of the entire world of all housing destruction since 2020 without any gaps in it," he said. "That would be a complete breakthrough!"

But satellites, too, have their limitations, he said. Currently, spacecraft must be tasked to take images and beam them to Earth. Because of the limited download availability, they can't image every spot they fly over, meaning they usually only reveal the aftermath of catastrophic incidents. For example, the Syrian city of Homs only became the focus of satellite imaging campaigns after the Syrian military attacked it with heavy artillery to suppress pro-democracy protests.

"There are no images of Homs before it got attacked," said Mueller. "There is no archival data of the city from before. Then, after the attack, you suddenly get lots."

In the future, onboard AI image processing — which some of the commercial satellite Earth-observation companies have already rolled out — might solve the problem. Machine learning algorithms running on computers on board the satellites will be able to detect incidents of potential interest and autonomously select significant images to send to the ground.

But there are other concerns. Just as authoritarian regimes can deny access to warzones to independent journalists, governments can order Earth-observation companies to restrict access to images of specific areas. In fact, the U.S. government did just that earlier this year when it ordered American commercial Earth-observation providers like Planet Labs to stop releasing high-resolution images of the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz amid the escalating conflict in the region. The U.S also asked Europe to delay releasing images of that region captured by the European Sentinel satellites by 24 hours.

"With that, we are back to the same biases that we have with the news reporting," Mueller said. "We need to think about infrastructure that would provide us with transparency. That would really be a revolution in conflict research."

The new study was published in the journal Nature on Sept. 9.

A team of researchers just chased a pair of reentering satellites in a private jet to learn about the pollution caused by space debris burning up in Earth's atmosphere.

The satellites in question were the European Space Agency's (ESA) Tango and Samba spacecraft, which once formed the Cluster constellation, together with the already de-orbited Rumba and Salsa. The quartet used to study the interaction of Earth's magnetic field with the solar wind. After 25 years of service, ESA took advantage of the Tango and Samba's controlled demise to help scientists learn what happens when satellites break apart and burn up during their spiral back to Earth.

The international team of researchers chased the two reentries, which occurred one day apart — on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 — above the southern Pacific Ocean a few hundred miles from the Polynesian archipelago of Tonga.

Their goal was to understand what happens when satellites disintegrate and what chemical compounds arise in the process. Although companies such as SpaceX, Amazon and Blue Origin want to launch huge numbers of satellites to space in the next decade — SpaceX alone plans to loft 100,000 of its Starlink V3 spacecraft — very little is known about the effects of satellite reentries on Earth's atmosphere. Researchers are also still unsure which spacecraft burn up completely and how many fragments may reach the ground, putting lives and property at risk.

"We want to understand what happens to these bodies as they fly through the atmosphere, which causes friction and very high temperatures," Jiří Šilha, CEO of the Slovak company Astros Solutions, and one of the researchers aboard the plane, told Space.com. "We know that those satellites break up into fragments, which subsequently melt in the atmosphere."

The researchers chased the reentering spacecraft following exact calculations provided by ESA controllers, who were able to maintain connection with the spacecraft until the very last moment before they plunged into the atmosphere.

The satellite reentries, although they occurred during daylight, were visible from aboard the plane even to the naked eye, said Šilha, and created spectacular fireballs that lasted tens of seconds.

"Bolides and meteors only last a few seconds or less," said Šilha. "But satellites are slower. They enter the atmosphere at a shallower angle, and the atmosphere slows them down further."

But the researchers were there for science, not for a sky show. And it was a rare opportunity: The Cluster trajectories were so precisely known that the scientists could prepare for them and be at the exact spot at the exact time to witness those explosions from only a couple of hundred miles away.

The aircraft, a small commercial business jet, was packed with 30 cameras and spectrometers fitted with special filters to capture not only how the satellites disintegrated but also detect the spectral signatures of the chemical elements released as their bodies burned up.

Eight scientists were squashed on board the darkened jet operating the instruments through the aircraft's six windows as the pilots navigated to the vicinity of the spot where ESA analysts had predicted the breakup would occur.

"We were flying toward the object, and first it looked like a compact source of light as the material ablated," said Šilha. "At some point, there was a sudden explosion as the satellite disintegrated."

The plane allowed the researchers to overcome any clouds that could obscure the view from the ground, and also to bypass the thickest layer of the atmosphere, which would distort the measurements. As the satellites hurtled through the air, slowing down from the mind-boggling speed of 22,370 mph (36,000 kph) at which they hit the upper atmosphere, the jet approached them to within a distance of around 75 miles (120 kilometers).

"We begin observing it when it's at about 90 kilometers [56 miles] and it stops being visible at about 65 to 70 kilometers [40 to 44 miles]," Šilha said. "For about thirty to forty seconds after the explosion, you can observe an interesting structure as all those various fragments ablate in the atmosphere. Then they all either burn up or slow down."

Šilha said the cameras captured tens of fragments, in detail that had never been observed before.

The researchers also attempted to trace seven chemical compounds, including titanium, sodium and potassium, which get released as satellites burn up. The team was especially interested in aluminum, which makes up the majority of a satellite body. Aluminum is not naturally present in Earth's atmosphere and most likely forms aluminum oxide during the incineration. The potential presence of aluminum oxide in the atmosphere in higher concentrations worries scientists, as it could potentially trigger ozone depletion in the stratosphere.

"We tried to measure the aluminum at different altitudes, using specialized filters, which could tell us when this aluminum interacts with the atmosphere," said Šilha. "That's when the aluminum oxide likely forms, and that's something that has never been observed before. We don't know exactly how and in what quantities the aluminum oxide might be forming."

The researchers will now analyze the data to learn exactly what chemical reactions may be occurring during every second of the breakup and burn-up process. The data will help atmospheric physics and chemistry researchers improve their models to further our understanding of the potential damage the growing satellite industry might do to the planet and its climate in the future.

"The data will help us validate whether the models agree with reality," said Šilha.

The team previously chased the reentry of the first of the four Cluster satellites — Salsa — in September 2024. The lessons from that campaign helped the team get closer to the Tango and Samba spacecraft and obtain more and more accurate data.

Each of the sun-reflecting mirrors proposed by U.S.-based startup Reflect Orbital will appear 40 times brighter than the full moon to observers standing within its beam on Earth, a study has found. The light pollution produced by each of those mirrors would completely wipe out stars from the sky for those underneath them, turning the starry night into an eerie twilight zone.

"It will be worse than big cities like London," Gaspar Bakos, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Princeton and one of the authors of the study, told Space.com. "You would not see any stars if you were in the beam."

Reflect Orbital recently received a license from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch a demonstration satellite called EARENDIL-1 into an orbit 373 miles (600 kilometers) above Earth. The spacecraft will be fitted with a giant mirror 60 by 60 feet (18 by 18 meters) in size to test how sunlight can be reflected to Earth to extend the operations of solar power plants into nighttime hours or even to illuminate disaster zones after dark for free.

Despite the company's intentions, the FCC's decision stirred an outcry among astronomers, environmental campaigners, commercial pilot associations and other stakeholders, who fear the effects that might come to pass if the FCC approves Reflect Orbital's plan to launch 40,000 space mirrors even larger than EARENDIL-1 in the coming years.

Bakos is one of the astronomers who filed objections to the FCC against the plan. He said that the new study provides hard numbers on Reflect Orbital's impact where there previously were only rough estimates.

"There has been some disbelief from Reflect Orbital about our original estimates, so we have taken data on light scattering in Earth's atmosphere which is based on papers that go back for decades to calculate the light pollution," said Bakos. "These are scattering calculations that have been extensively tested in real life situations. So, we now have scientifically accurate renderings based on this paper."

Instead of focusing on EARENDIL-1, the researchers calculated the impact of Reflect Orbital's operational mirrors, which will be 174 by 174 feet (54 by 54 m) in size. They found that to observers on Earth standing at the center of the mirror's 3.4-mile-wide (5.4 kilometers) beam, the satellite would appear 40 times as bright as the full moon and the sky as luminous as that in the after-sunset twilight.

But thanks to atmospheric light scattering — the bouncing of photons off particles in the air — the area affected by the mirror's passage would be much wider, the study found. Even at a distance of nearly 9 miles (14 kilometers) from the beam, the sky would be brighter than when the moon is full. At a distance of 21 miles (34 kilometers), the light-polluted area above the horizon in the direction of the beam would still appear brighter than the night sky during a full moon.

That would be just a single mirror. But Reflect Orbital wants to fly 40,000 such satellites. Bakos said that data suggests that to trigger energy generation even in the most efficient solar panels of today would require the combined reflected light from at least 400 such mirrors at the same time. Together, the beam from those mirrors would be 10,000 brighter than the full moon, which, however, only makes up about 2.4 percent of the brightness of the sun, the paper states.

The sky glow resulting from these combined beams, the researchers found, would be visible from 50 miles away (80 kilometers), and extend the twilight zone up to 9 miles (14 kilometers) from the beam.

"It would be almost daytime brightness," said Bakos. "It would be just like before sunrise. But in fact, that's too low for solar panels to actually operate. Even the very best ones would barely turn on even with 400 mirrors illuminating the patch."

In renderings created by Bakos and his team based on the calculations, a pristine dark sky at a dark location is shown to completely transform into a star-free twilight zone as the mirror flies overhead.

Reflect Orbital's spokesperson told Space.com in response that the study's findings were based on "inaccurate assumptions" and insisted that "the vast majority of people will never see the light in their lifetime as the vast majority of service locations will be very remote," serving "large construction and solar projects in the middle of nowhere."

The spokesperson further added that "only the satellites required to serve approved locations would be active; inactive satellites would remain below naked-eye visibility."

The researchers, however, criticize the company for failing to provide technical data to back up their claims.

Reflect Orbital, however, insists that they "engaged substantively with legitimate concerns raised by astronomers, environmental researchers and scientists" and that such "feedback has informed our technology and operational plans."

The company says that they are "working on a coordination agreement with the National Science Foundation and commissioning third-party research through independent researchers and federal partners."

For comparison, SpaceX's Starlink currently consists of around 11,000 satellites. According to some estimates, around 30 Starlink satellites are visible in the sky from a single spot on Earth at any point in time. Starlink satellites, however, are much smaller and dimmer than the Reflect Orbital mirrors.

Bakos said the overall effect of the mirrors would depend on the reflectiveness of the illuminated surface and the cloudiness of the sky. A forest, for example, might absorb most of the light while snow-covered fields or concrete city streets would scatter it further.

"It's not just the beam," said Bakos. "The glow of the reflected light from the surface will cause the sky to glow. For example the light pollution from a town illuminated by the beam will be ten to 20 times brighter than from the artificial lighting in that same town. Artificial light only illuminates streets and sidewalks, but here, everything would be illuminated — every backyard, park, roof or river."

The FCC received around 1,900 objections against the Reflect Orbital application. In its Order and Justification of Reflect Orbital's mission license, the agency stated that "impacts on optical astronomy fall outside [the FCC's] review and authorization."

In the U.S., satellite projects are exempt from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires federal agencies to assess environmental impacts of their decisions. The exemption has been in place since the 1980s when only a handful of satellites were being launched in a year.

The study was accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal and is currently available on arXiv.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can single-handedly green-light massive spaceflight projects that could completely change the view of the night sky for the entire world. Despite the outcry these projects have caused, space law experts say there is very little other nations and the international community can do to thwart them if the FCC were to grant them licenses.

On July 10, the FCC approved an application by California-based Reflect Orbital to launch a 59-by-59-foot (18-by-18 meters) space mirror to test how to reflect sunlight onto solar farms on Earth after dusk. The decision has sparked outcry among astronomers and environmentalists who are concerned about the impact on global light pollution levels that Reflect Orbital's plans might have.

Opponents see the FCC's approval, despite hundreds of objections filed in response to the application, as an indication that the agency might eventually grant Reflect Orbital a license to fly an entire constellation of 50,000 such sun-reflecting mirrors. On top of Reflect Orbital's plans, companies including SpaceX, Blue Origin and Starcloud are awaiting the FCC's decisions on respective applications to deploy their own massive fleets of orbiting data centers and internet-beaming satellites. If all those projects come to fruition, the view of the night sky could change beyond recognition all over the world.

"The technology is outpacing the regulatory environment."

The United Nations' Outer Space Treaty conceived in the late 1960s lays down the international framework for the use and exploration of outer space. The document states that approvals for satellite projects are the domain of the nation in which those satellites are registered.

"The U.N. Treaty for Uses of Outer Space very well specifies that how many satellites are shot into space and how they are registered is a prerogative of the country in which they are registered," a source familiar with the operations of the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), who didn't wish to be named, told Space.com.

The states from which they launch, however, are responsible for any damage the satellites registered under their flags cause to other countries. But Ruskin Hartley, the CEO and Executive Director of the advocacy group DarkSky International, told Space.com that this liability provision only covers physical damage such as satellites colliding in space or spacecraft crashing down on Earth and damaging property.

"It hasn't been tested at all but most people don't think this damage extends to optical interference," Hartley said. "It would have to be physical damage. If a satellite reflects sunlight down and damages someone's observatory, that probably doesn't count as damage under the Outer Space Treaty."

In its Article I, the Outer Space Treaty states that "the exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries." But what exactly that means and what could be done if there is no consensus about those benefits is not clear at all.

The anonymous source told Space.com that UNOOSA and the UN-wide Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) may discuss the issue, but despite the global consequences, are unlikely to come up with a mechanism to stop the corporations from doing what they want if the FCC backs them.

"These UN institutions were all started in the last century and are very slow," the source said. "They require unanimous consensus to pass anything and that obviously hardly ever happens. So nothing gets passed. By the time UN COPUOS and UNOOSA are done discussing anything, SpaceX will have launched another thousands satellites."

The European state of Slovakia in cooperation with the International Astronomical Union (IAU), in fact, submitted a paper to UN COPUOS in June calling for a "general prohibition on the use of space mirrors" or the development of "strong oversight mechanisms."

Aaron Boley, an astronomer at the University of British Columbia, who has been involved with the initiative, admits that these efforts are not likely to progress fast enough.

"There is indeed a major challenge right now with single states being able to create large changes to the sky and the orbital environment," Boley told Space.com in an email. "At the U.N. COPUOS, there are important steps being taken. But these agreements can be slow to achieve."

Hartley added that the companies pushing for grandiose space projects are taking advantage of existing legal loopholes that are not being effectively closed.

"These entrepreneurs that are pursuing these projects, either in the U.S. context as private entrepreneurs or in some instances in Europe and in China as government-level projects, clearly demonstrate that the regulatory environment and regulatory framework has significant gaps and holes in it," Hartley said. "Essentially, the technology is outpacing the regulatory environment."

Unilateral U.S. decisions

According to international space law and policy expert and former NASA legal council Robin J. Frank, this is not the first time the U.S. has pushed ahead with its agenda regardless of the concerns of the international community.

"This is not the first time the FCC has started down the route of unilateral decisions," Frank told Space.com. "Recently, for example, the FCC has approved direct-to-cell communication systems, which connect from a satellite directly to your phone, to use parts of the radio frequency spectrum that have not been authorized for that use by the International Communications Union. Their argument is that they are giving the U.S. industry a leg up."

The U.S., responsible for roughly 25 percent of the global GDP, has historically been reluctant to agree to binding international mechanisms that could restrict its actions, Frank added. Other major global powers, such as China or Russia tend to have a similar attitude, she said.

Currently, the U.S. is not even a party to the Paris Agreement, an international treaty that binds nations to work toward reducing their greenhouse gas emissions in order to curb global warming.

Frank added that individual nations could, for example, take action against constellations of orbiting mirrors by banning them from beaming light onto their territory at a threat of hefty fines. That however, is still not going to stop the development and mitigate the overall light pollution these satellites cause as they inadvertently reflect light as they zoom around Earth.

DarkSky International previously sued the FCC at the District Court of Columbia, challenging its decision to grant SpaceX a license to launch tens of thousands of satellites without conducting an environmental review. The court eventually rejected the non-profit's arguments, but Hartley said the advocacy group would consider filing another lawsuit if the FCC were to green-light the full Reflect Orbital constellation of 50,000 space mirrors or SpaceX's million orbiting data centers.

Despite the massive growth in the past decade, the satellite industry is exempt from the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act, meaning neither the FCC nor the satellite companies are obliged to prove their technologies will not be detrimental to the environment. That exclusion was put in place in the 1980s when satellite launches were few and far between. Many argue it's more than a high time to do away with it.

"It's a regulatory failure," Hartley said. "The ultimate fix is probably a legislative fix, or an administration that directs them to act differently. But this administration is not going to do that."

"This is an issue that's going to affect the quality of life for everybody on Earth."

A recent study by astronomers from the European Southern Observatory found that the brightness of the night sky would rise by up to 300 percent if all the currently planned constellations were to get deployed. That, the astronomers say, would be an end to astronomy as we know it.

Other experts pointed out that the need to have access to constant sunshine would force all orbital data center operators into a single narrow region of space, creating a bright "Saturn's ring" of satellites around the planet.

In its justification for granting the Reflect Orbital test flight license, the FCC stated that arguments about light pollution are outside its merit to judge. No other U.S. government agency, however, currently has a say over granting licenses to satellite companies.

Hartley added the issue far exceeds the interests of astronomers. The brightening of the sky would affect the entire world, including indigenous communities who rely on stars as part of their cultural heritage. The excessive light pollution is also likely to confuse wild animals and affect ecosystems.

On top of that, the air pollution from large quantities of re-entering satellites and the rockets that launch them risks damaging the ozone layer and altering the thermal balance of Earth's atmosphere, according to ongoing research. Greenhouse gas emissions released during launch and the manufacturing of the satellites may offset the advantages of putting data centers to space, extolled by the companies behind those plans.

"The industrialization of space is going to impact carbon in the atmosphere, through the launch phases of all these rockets, and it's very clear that the deorbit of these satellites is likely to change the composition of the atmosphere," Hartley said.

"This is more than just a niche issue for astronomers. This is an issue that's going to affect the quality of life for everybody on Earth."

A bright "Saturn's ring" of satellites could circle the night sky if plans to launch a million data center spacecraft and tens of thousands of space mirrors come to pass. This ring, traversing the sky for hours after dusk and before dawn, would outshine every star and planet, and be visible from every spot on Earth.

Hugh Lewis, a professor of astronautics at the University of Birmingham in, the U.K., told Space.com that the only way to accommodate the high number of data center constellations that have been proposed is to stack them above another in orbit above the boundary between day and night, creating an artificial "Saturn's Ring" of satellites around the planet. That ring would show in the sky as a luminous band much brighter than any star or planet and even the full moon.

"If you were to look up at night, they would be all in one plane, really close together, going in the same direction," said Lewis. "The impact on the night sky would be absolutely catastrophic."

The next time you're away from urban light pollution, spend some time outdoors after dark and enjoy the view of the Milky Way and the constellations that have inspired awe since humankind woke to consciousness. Chances are those views are not here to stay forever.

Such a notion would have seemed like science fiction only a few years ago, but since the orbital data center frenzy kicked off last year, the once-fanciful prospect has become a distinct possibility.

A flurry of companies including SpaceX, Starcloud, Cowboy Space, Orbital and Blue Origin have applied to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for licenses to launch more than a million data center satellites combined. China has already jumped on that bandwagon, too, with plans to develop an orbital data center network within the next five years.

On top of those projects, California-based Reflect Orbital wants to launch 50,000 orbiting mirrors into space to reflect sunlight to solar power plants on Earth after dusk. Reflect Orbital received its license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday, July 10, to fly the first of these mirrors — a 60 by 60 feet (18 by 18 meter) demonstration satellite named Eärendil-1, which is expected to launch by the end of this year.

Lewis explained that all these data centers and mirrors would have to orbit Earth in the same orbital plane to have access to constant sunshine. This orbital plane follows the terminator line — the boundary between day and night — and takes the satellites over the planet's north and south poles.

"Orbital data centers and Reflect Orbital all tend to rely upon what these operators call 24 hours of sunlight in space," Lewis said. "To have that, you have to be in a particular orbit, which follows the dawn-dusk line. It's not like the Starlink megaconstellation, which is distributed around the Earth."

Samantha Lawler, an astronomer at University of Regina in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, agrees with Lewis. Lawler and her colleagues used computer modelling to visualize the impact of several of the proposed data center fleets including SpaceX's Starmind, Blue Origin's Project Sunrise and the Stampede constellation proposed by Cowboy Space.

In those visualizations, satellites visible from the planet's surface not just outshine the visible stars, they also outnumber them. Lawler explained that as Earth turns under the terminator orbit, the Saturn's ring of satellites would move across the sky twice a day — in the early evening hours between 6 and 8 p.m. and just before dawn.

"[The ring] would pass overhead at the same time every night," Lawler said. "That means its effect would be worse during winter time than the summer time."

Lawler cautions that the visualizations are based on publicly available data and may not reflect the exact technical specifications of the satellites involved. The work has also not yet been peer-reviewed.

However, Lawler added that the scattered light from that ring would continue brightening the sky for up to two hours after it would sink below the horizon, just like the sun keeps illuminating the firmament after it sets.

"It would make our taxpayer-funded telescope time much less effective," Lawler said. "We could do a lot less science for the same cost, and many science cases, including the search for dangerous near Earth asteroids, would be seriously compromised."

There would be no escape from the view of the ring anywhere in the world.

The modelling shows that some of these constellations — Blue Origin's Project Sunrise in particular — would fly their satellites in an additional orbital inclination that would create the shape of X on top of the main "Saturn's ring."

"If you were close to the equator, you would virtually have this X shape of crawling satellites come up in the sky early in the morning and after sunset," said Lawler. Further up north, you would see this as two separate bands. One band would come up in the morning and the other would emerge as the sun sets."

The actual brightness of this "Saturn's ring" would depend on the exact number of the satellites in it. But researchers warn that as each Reflect Orbital's space mirror is bound to be at least as bright as Venus — the brightest object in the sky after the full moon — the luminosity of this band would be extreme.

An earlier study by the European Southern Observatory concluded that a constellation of 50,000 Reflect Orbital mirrors would increase the brightness of the night sky by up to 300 percent, making the world's most expensive telescopes effectively useless.

"Humanity has already fundamentally altered the cosmos to the point where Earth is now an artificial 'ringed planet' choked by satellites and space debris," astronomer and dark sky advocate John Barentine, told Space.com. "But projects like Reflect Orbital will turn those mostly now invisible rings into bright reflective tracks. We aren't talking about a just scattered field of bright, moving dots anymore.

"Rather, this is a permanent, artificial 'ring of Saturn' effect cutting right through the most critical twilight observing windows for global astronomy."

On paper, many of these projects seem to make sense. Data centers on Earth take up precious land. They require enormous amounts of water for cooling, strain power grids and generate greenhouse gas emissions. In space, cooling and access to electrical power would be free.

Reflect Orbital wants to deliver sunlight to Earth after dark to increase the yield of solar plants and agricultural farms, provide free, sustainable lighting to construction sites and illuminate disaster zones in search of missing persons. The company maintains that it works to minimize disruption to astronomy and intends to cooperate with the scientific community.

"Every stage of our development is guided by data — testing, measuring, listening and adapting," the company's spokesperson said in an email. "We are actively commissioning independent, third-party research on the impacts of our technology."

The astronomers who spoke to Space.com, however, unanimously claim that the Reflect Orbital constellation and astronomy cannot coexist. "If we have mirrors in orbit, astronomy is over," Lawler said .

The American Astronomical Society (AAS), issued a statement criticizing the FCC's decision to grant Reflect Orbital a license to fly its test satellite.

"Reflect Orbital's proposed satellite, which would reflect sunlight back to Earth at night, carries the potential for significant harm to our members and the broader community of those who depend on a dark night sky," the AAS wrote. "This harm could include damage to sensitive research telescope equipment, potential flash-blinding of pilots and drivers, and — as Reflect Orbital stated in its own FCC filings — potential permanent eye damage to anyone looking through a mid-sized telescope."

In the past, astronomers praised SpaceX for attempts to dim the Starlink satellites by using dark paint and special visors to reduce reflectiveness. But Lawler said that many of these attempts have been undone by SpaceX's gradual increase of the satellites' size. While first generation Starlinks were about 570 pounds (260 kilograms) in mass, the latest generation weigh more than 4,400 pounds (2,000 kilograms) each.

"They did a lot of work to make the satellites darker, but then they also made them bigger and put them on lower orbits, and that has made them much, much brighter," Lawler said. "You can see Starlink satellites everywhere even with the naked eye. They are very visible and they are all over the sky."

In its Order and Justification of Reflect Orbital's mission license, the FCC stated that "impacts on optical astronomy fall outside [FCC's] review and authorization."

"The Commission's rules do not address the protection of optical astronomy, and thus we decline to interpret commenters' concerns in connection with the Commission's mandate," the FCC wrote.

The astronomers, however, point out that no other regulatory body in the U.S. and outside has a say in awarding satellite licenses to US companies and reviewing applications with respect to impacts on the night sky and the wider environment.

"The FCC is the only agency that's regulating American satellite launches," said Lawler. "But if the FCC says that this is not their problem, then whose problem is it?"

The AAS in its statement called on the FCC to "consider all of the impacts of the satellite's use case."

"In the absence of another licensing agency that could take these considerations into account, we believe that it is critical for the FCC to consider all of the impacts of the satellite's use case," the AAS wrote.

Robert Massey, the executive director of the U.K. Royal Astronautical Society added: " This is setting a bad precedent and opening up to the full deployment of the constellation that could get to the 50,000 satellites in a few years. It's really disappointing that the FCC authorized this."

SpaceX's Starlink satellites made over 355,000 collision avoidance maneuvers throughout the past year, with each satellite now dodging debris and other spacecraft on an almost weekly basis.

The numbers are based on disclosures made by SpaceX in its latest semiannual report to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). According to the latest report, Starlink satellites performed an overall 207,152 avoidance maneuvers between December 2025 and May 2026, up nearly 60,000 from the 148,696 reported in the previous half year. That brings the yearly total to over 355,000, more than three times as many as the constellation performed in 2024. On average, each Starlink satellite performed more than 40 space dodging maneuvers per year between June 1, 2025 and May 31, 2026.

Experts fear the situation might soon get out of hand. "I think we're heading towards a situation where there will be a collision involving an operational satellite in the constellation," Hugh Lewis, a space sustainability expert and professor of astronautics at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., told Space.com. "And it will not be for the lack of trying to avoid those things. It will be in spite of all those maneuvers."

The increase coincides with the growth of the internet-beaming constellation and the overall number of satellites in space in the past five years. Starlink grew from about 6,000 satellites in 2024 to more than 10,000 as of June 2026. Over the same time period, the overall number of operational spacecraft in orbit rose from around 10,000 to about 16,000.

The SpaceX constellation orbits at altitudes between 298 miles (480 km) and 342 miles (550 kilometers) and uses an autonomous collision avoidance system that initiates a maneuver when the probability of a collision appears higher than 3 in 10 million. Lewis says that although SpaceX is "doing an excellent job" managing orbital traffic, the steep growth cannot continue without risks.

"The avoidance maneuvers reduce the probability of a collision to about one in a million, which is so small that it's negligible," Lewis said. "The problem is that if you make a million maneuvers and you have a residual probability of one in a million, you end up with an aggregate risk across your entire constellation that you can't get rid of."

Lewis points out that with the expected continued rise in avoidance maneuvers (SpaceX has applied to the FCC to increase the size of its constellation to 100,000 satellites), SpaceX will have made a million avoidance maneuvers over the lifetime of the Starlink constellation as early as June 2027. By 2030, the constellation may be making more than a million maneuvers every year. At that point, the one in a million risk of a collision may no longer be negligible at all.

Tommaso Sgobba, the Director of the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety, told Space.com that the increase in collision avoidance maneuvers is a predictable certainty.

"The more satellites you pack into [an orbital] shell, the more pairs of satellites exist that could potentially cross paths," Sgobba wrote in an email. "Adding satellites does not just add risk one unit at a time, it multiplies the number of possible pairings. Double the satellites in a shell and you roughly quadruple the number of pairs that need to be watched."

Sgobba also said that the collision probabilities predicted are highly inaccurate as the effects of air drag, which change frequently with space weather, are currently impossible to predict.

He said that due to the vast uncertainties in satellite trajectory predictions "operators lack tools to tell a real threat from statistical confusion," adding that "satellites are frequently dodging ghosts, burning fuel and shortening their operational lives in the process."

SpaceX, being the largest constellation currently in orbit, takes the bulk of responsibilities for orbital maneuvering. Instead of communicating with the other operator to decide who will make the dodge, Starlink satellites automatically avoid other objects — both space debris fragments or operational satellites — whenever there is a conjunction alert.

Other ambitious constellations, such as Amazon LEO or China's Thousand Sails, or Qianfan, are currently being deployed, actively adding to the high number of satellites operating in low Earth orbit.

Lewis said that the only way to safely manage multiple constellations is to make sure their orbits do not intersect. That, however, is not the case based on available information. The Thousand Sails constellation, in particular, is expected to occupy similar regions as Starlink. Many of the recently announced orbital data center projects want to launch into particular orbital regions that are convenient for their operations and are therefore likely to overlap.

"The safe thing to do is to separate the constellations," Lewis said. "But then you are talking about orbital carrying capacity and the first mover benefit, because if I go into a particular altitude with my constellation, then nobody else can use it."

Sgobba calls for predicted numbers of collision avoidance maneuvers based on satellite numbers to be mandatorily disclosed to regulators before applications are granted.

"Right now, there is no clear requirement for a company to say, before launch, how many collision avoidance maneuvers a constellation of this size and density will need every year and whether the satellites carry enough fuel and automation to actually perform them all," Sgobba wrote.

"In short, the crowding of orbit is not an accident waiting to happen. It is a manageable, predictable engineering workload and the argument worth making publicly is that regulators should be treating it that way, by asking for these numbers up front rather than reacting to headlines about near misses after the fact."

Tiny pieces of space junk only 2 inches (5 centimeters) in size are cluttering a valuable orbital region where some of the costliest satellites reside, a new study has found.

Researchers from the University of Warwick in the U.K. found that the geostationary orbit — a region of space at the altitude of 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) — is full of dangerous, previously unseen bits of space junk that could destroy satellites.

The geostationary orbit is quite unique. Satellites at this altitude circle Earth in sync with the planet's rotation, appearing permanently suspended above a fixed spot on the equator. A single satellite in the geostationary ring has a constant view of a vast portion of the globe. This feature has been taken advantage of for decades for things like TV broadcasting, internet delivery, Earth observation and weather monitoring. But, as it appears, those satellites might not be safe up there at all.

"The debris in geosynchronous orbit is a potential minefield," Stuart Eves, the study’s co-author and space consultant at SJE Space, said in a statement. "No one in their right mind would enter a terrestrial minefield without a mine detector. Similarly, no one in their right mind should launch a satellite to GEO without an adequate debris survey."

The researchers uncovered the previously invisible debris by re-examining a dataset from an earlier space debris survey conducted by astronomers using the 8.3-foot (2.54-meter) Isaac Newton Telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands. They ran the data through new image processing algorithms to distinguish smaller and much fainter fragments than was previously possible in the distant geostationary orbit.

"The blind stacking technique is a very powerful method for improving the sensitivity limit of astronomical datasets," Ben Cooke, a research fellow at the University of Warwick's Center for Space Domain Awareness and co-author of the paper, said in the statement. "It involves testing many potential paths in an image sequence along which hidden targets might be moving and stacking the images to help bring those targets above the noise floor. This project shows a successful, real-world application of the method."

The researchers found 25 previously missed debris tracks in the images, 80% of which were caused by previously unknown objects.

The finding is concerning as space debris at such high altitudes behaves differently from that circling closer to Earth. The residual atmosphere at 22,000 miles is almost non-existent, meaning there is no air drag to force the orbital clutter spiral into the atmosphere and burn up.

"Debris in the neighborhood of the geostationary belt is particularly concerning," James Blake, also a Warwick research fellow and the study’s co-author, said in the statement. "It's very far away, well above the Earth's atmosphere, so small objects tend to be incredibly faint and difficult to detect, and any debris that's generated will stick around indefinitely."

While orbits near Earth naturally clear up as the residual air at these altitudes slows the junk fragments down, at the higher altitude, the concentrations of such fragments will forever keep rising, making the region ever more tricky to operate in.

Moreover, the satellites that reside in this unique orbital region tend to be very large and expensive, designed for much longer missions than those making up megaconstellations in low Earth orbit. These satellites, frequently fitted with solar panels spanning 100 feet (30 meters) or more, can suffer substantial damage from a collision with the tiniest piece of junk.

"Pieces of space junk can be moving very quickly relative to one another, as much as several kilometers every second," Blake said. "The energies involved are really high, and even small debris can cause a lot of damage to very expensive satellites, so small things really matter."

The researchers are now looking to analyze additional images obtained by other telescopes around the world to get a fuller understanding of the scale of the debris contamination in the region.

The study was published in the Journal of Astronautical Sciences in June.

Imagine you're on a hike in a remote mountain range. Your hyperactive dog catches the scent of a deer and, powered by his hunter's instinct, disappears in the forest. He has a GPS tracker in his collar that can send his coordinates via the cellular network. But where you are, there is no mobile coverage. You keep whistling and calling but to no avail: your dog is nowhere to be seen.

That exact scenario prompted technologist Jonathan Bensamoun to develop what he describes as the world's first satellite-connected wearable device for dogs. Bensamoun is the founder and CEO of Fi, which has been manufacturing dog trackers since 2017. He first conceived the idea to make GPS devices for dogs when he adopted a young German shepherd named Thor and wanted to make sure that his hired dog walker wasn't cutting corners when taking him out for walks.

But even though the company had quickly grown into a market leader, Bensamoun kept hearing customers complain about the device's usefulness. That's where SpaceX's Starlink satellites came in.

"The number one complaint from customers is either 'I live in an area where the cellular network is not really good' or 'I get really worried about my dog when it's away from the typical suburban area. I am worried when it escapes the yard and runs into the woods," Bensamoun told Space.com.

When Starlink began delivering connectivity directly to smartphones in 2024, Bensamoun knew a solution to the problem was on its way. And on July 8, the world's first satellite dog tracking service came online.

The device combines a GPS receiver, which determines the dog's position in real time, and a simple battery-powered modem that connects to T-Mobile's cellular network, which partners with Space's Starlink system. When the dog's position registers outside a pre-defined zone, the owner receives a message via a smartphone app.

When no cell tower is within reach, the device links with an overflying Starlink satellite to complete the task. The dog owner can also set a geo fence around the dog, an area within which the dog is allowed to move without triggering an alert. When the dog crosses that virtual boundary, for example, escapes from the backyard, the tracker sends a message to the owner.

The device's battery lasts "multiple days", according to Fi, giving the desperate pet owner plenty of time to locate the refugee. To speed up the search, Fi enables the owner to send the dog signals — short bursts of vibrations or sounds — to entice it to come home voluntarily.

"You can train your dog with those vibrations and reward it with food every time they receive the vibration," said Bensamoun. "That way, they will start associating the vibration with their food being ready at home."

GPS tracking has been around for decades. In the animal realm, wild, endangered animals became the first to wear them in the 1990s. But those early devices were clunky and expensive, good for large mammals such as moose and caribou, but not fit for commercial use on pets. The technology finally shrunk to small enough dimensions in the early 2010s when first GPS dog trackers entered the market.

Today, some 11 million dogs worldwide are tracked or monitored by GPS in some form. Fi's new tracker — the Fi Ultra Direct-to-Cell tracker — takes the technology another step further by providing "nearly omnipresent connectivity," said Bensamoun.