What kind of moth has Musk made again?
This time it was his Starlink project.
The latest research statistics can be said to have hammered the starlink satellite interference astronomical observations.
In case someone doesn't know StarLink yet, let's briefly introduce it.
It is Musk who hopes to cover the world with a large number of communication satellites.
Make high-speed Internet access available in every corner of the planet, especially in some remote areas.
First of all, the machine brother has to admit that this is a very ambitious plan, and it is indeed worth looking forward to.
However, not many people have enjoyed the fruits of Starlink now, and negative news has been flying all over the sky.
A recent team analyzed the appearance of Starlink satellites in astronomical observation images in the past two years.
The data comes from images taken by the telescope of the Zwicky Transient Probe at the Palomar Mountain Observatory in the United States.
This device is used to observe some rare phenomena in the universe.
Like supernova explosions, neutron star collisions, gamma-ray bursts, and so on.
A bit esoteric, but it doesn't matter.
The important thing is that this telescope always photographs the starlink moons.
At its peak, more than 200 satellites were photographed in 10 days.
The specific effect, like this.
These moons reflect sunlight, are brighter than many stars in the frame, and pull out a bright line.
This satellite reflection is most severe at dawn and dusk.
By the end of 2021, 18% of the images taken in these two time periods will have the strong presence of Starlink satellites.
Compared with two years ago, the number of times starlink satellites have interfered with observations has increased by 35 times.
Counting the launch of the sky not long ago, there are now more than 2,000 star-chain satellites above the earth.
What's even more frightening is that this is only 5% of the total number of starlink projects.
Musk plans to launch 42,000 satellites.
You may not have any concept.
Brother Ji said so, when they are all deployed, almost covering the entire earth.
Anywhere, at any time, there are nearly 500 starlink moons above our heads.
If you look at the starry sky with a regular 20x binoculars, there will be an average of 8 starlink moons in your field of vision.
Some people may be curious, didn't there also be many moons before the Starlink project?
Problems affecting astronomical observations should have existed before.
Why are you only talking about Starlink now?
The question is like this, and the brother chewed it up for you.
The Starlink satellites themselves have a lot to offer.
First of all, its size is not small, and its card-type design has a larger surface area than other satellites.
In addition, the surface of the satellite is particularly bright, especially the four transmitting antennas.
The reason is also well understood, in order to prevent the absorption of sunlight heat caused by malfunction.
The second is the attitude problem of the Starlink satellites.
Come, follow the rhythm of the machine brother and think back to junior high school physics.
Do you remember the contents of the satellite's orbit change?
That's right, the satellite is launched and finally reaches the working orbit, and there is a process of ascending orbit.
During the orbital ascension of the Starlink satellite, the solar panels are facing the ground.
Moreover, more often, a rocket can send 60 starlink satellites into the sky.
Imagine dozens of mirrors looking at the ground as they collectively ascend to orbit.
The line crossed the sky, hence the name "Starlink Train".
How bright is it? Early beta satellites, when ascending orbit, killed most of the stars visible to the naked eye.
You look up into the sky and find the 50 brightest stars, and there are starlink moons in them.
Of course, they are not so bright 24 hours a day.
Mainly at dawn before dawn, and at dusk when it was just dark.
The rest of the night they are obscured by the Earth's shadows and do not reflect much of the sun's rays.
However, the machine brother still has to say but.
A single satellite reflects fine, but it can't stand thousands of them coming together.
The professional observatory was overwhelmed, and the photos taken were like this.
Or something like that.
Even amateur astronomy enthusiasts complain bitterly.
Want to come to a long exposure, shoot the comet tail, the result is that the person gave the whole defense.
I wanted to shoot a beautiful star orbit, and it turned out to be a satellite orbit.
So StarChain is going to mess up, no matter what?
No, they are actually working to improve the impact on astronomical observations.
The machine brother checked, and there were many specific measures.
For example, the reflective part of the surface of the starlink satellite is blacked out.
Change the attitude of the satellite when it ascends to orbit, at least at dawn or dusk, and the solar panels are not facing the ground.
There is also one that is the most effective, but also the most troublesome.
It is to install a "sun blind" for the satellite to block the sunlight and fundamentally eliminate the problem of reflection.
(The arrow is in the direction of sunlight, and the black part of the satellite is shaded)
Although these measures have not yet been applied on a large scale, from the test of test satellites, blacking has had a certain effect.
But well, there are still hundreds of millions of points away from them reducing the reflection to the point of being invisible to the naked eye.
If they can eliminate the impact on astronomical observations, the Starlink Project is also controversial.
What is more serious now is the impact of the starlink on other spacecraft.
The recent news everyone should have heard about it.
The Starlink satellite "touched porcelain" twice on our Chinese space station.
In order to ensure the safety of astronauts, two preventive emergency circumventions had to be carried out.
Specifically, one was in July 2021, when Starlink-1095 was close to the Chinese space station after derating its orbit.
The other time was in October 2021, when the Starlink-2305 also risked a close-range collision in the case of continuous maneuvering.
However, Starlink has other "bad deeds".
In 2019, it almost collided with Europe's Fengshen meteorological satellite, and finally it was the European Space Agency that changed its orbit urgently to avoid the accident.
Last year, StarLink also nearly "killed" the satellites of rival OneWeb.
The closest distance between the two satellites is only 57.9 meters, while the warning distance for general collision hazards is 1km.
The machine brother has paid attention to the science and technology circle for so many years, what scene has not been seen?
But starlink such a rigid satellite, or the first time to see.
In fact, Starlink satellites have done a lot of design in order to prevent collisions.
There are navigation sensors, optical space lasers, and a fully automatic collision avoidance system.
However, at critical moments, it does not work very well.
Of course, the game and negotiation behind this is too complicated, and the machine brother will not unfold.
In short, space is a resource for all mankind, at least not before aliens were discovered.
No matter how to develop, it affects other people, it is really a bit excessive.
Although the machine brother talked a lot about the controversy of the Starlink project.
But to be honest, we still have to look at it from the perspective of development.
After all, StarLink is an unprecedented huge project, and many problems have been gradually exposed.
Reflective problem, Starlink is already working on improvement.
As for the impact on other spacecraft, the machine brother also hopes that in the future they can come up with a practical solution.
It can also be regarded as a model for other future plans to develop space.