Satellites sent into the Earth’s orbit have a huge scientific role. They can keep track of the weather or provide broadband internet for remote regions across the world. However, there is a total of over 2,700 satellites that currently revolve around the planet. If the number goes up even more, the situation can become a real problem.
The problem relies on the fact that astronomers won’t be able to observe space too clearly with their powerful telescopes. Space.com raises the problem of the increasing number of satellites.
High-speed internet across the world needs tens of thousands of satellites
Proving internet access to the entire world requires plenty of advanced tech gadgets to revolve above our heads. Elon Musk’s SpaceX already launched many internet satellites upon the company’s rockets. A lot more will come next.
Astronomers even tried to model the influence of mega-constellations when it comes to astronomy. They even modeled each satellite’s size and brightness. The conclusion is indeed concerning: astronomers believe that every aspect of modern astronomy will be affected in a way or another.
Despite the huge popularity of the internet, many parts of the world are still offline permanently. According to Statista.com, only 4.66 billion people are active internet users as of January 2021.
Although astronomy has its roots way back thousands of years ago, a lot of revolutionizing scientific discoveries were made about a hundred years ago. Let’s not forget that it wasn’t until the 1920s that astronomers found out for sure that the Universe is expanding and that \Milky Way is far from being the only galaxy out there. These tremendous milestones were achieved thanks to the work of the great American astronomer Edwin Hubble. A telescope of NASA was even named after it, and it had enormous success, although it’s expected to be replaced until the end of the year.
