NASA closely monitors asteroids that could pose a risk to Earth (but no risk has been proven to date). SpaceX’s ambitious constellation of Starlink satellites could hamper this much-needed tracking.
The reactions of some astronomers in the face of the recent incident encountered by SpaceX with its 40 Starlink satellites, lost due to a magnetic storm, are revealing. For many experts, the constellation of satellites imagined by Elon Musk to provide Internet from space is not a good idea. Between light pollution and the risk of collisions, many scientists point to the risks associated with the Starlink project.
NASA has just made another argument, spotted by journalist Michael Sheetz on Twitter February 9, 2022: according to estimates by the American space agency, putting 30,000 satellites into orbit (as is the goal) would result in having “ one Starlink in each asteroid survey image obtained for planetary defense purposes against potentially dangerous asteroid impacts, decreasing the effectiveness of the asteroid survey “. The quotation spotted by the journalist comes from a letter written by NASA, for the attention of the Federal Communications Commission (the FCC, agency responsible for regulating telecommunications) on February 7.
Starlink could hide asteroids in telescope images
No risk of impact with an asteroid has been proven to date, even if we regularly hear about the next asteroid which will “graze” the Earth (this is false). However, the absence of immediate danger does not prevent NASA from carefully monitoring these objects. It has increasingly powerful tools for tracking asteroids, especially near-Earth objects – whose trajectory brings them into the vicinity of our planet. To expand its inventory of asteroids, NASA mobilizes telescopes on the ground.
However, the letter written by the space agency mentions, these telescopes sometimes find satellite trails in their images that could interfere with or obscure asteroid detections “. The project to orbit 30,000 Starlink satellites around the Earth therefore raises a legitimate fear: that most of the images obtained by telescopes in search of asteroids are simply unusable. And so, let’s take the risk of missing asteroids representing a risk, which could have been spotted without the visual pollution of the Starlinks.
That ” could have a detrimental effect on our planet’s ability to detect and possibly redirect a potential catastrophic impact “Writes NASA in its letter. It remains to be seen what the FCC’s response will be and whether SpaceX will agree to consider this risk in its reflection. The criticisms of the visual pollution caused by the ambitious SpaceX project have probably not stopped raining.