COOL! The spicy article I wrote about satellite pollution is FINALLY published! "Bright satellites are disrupting astronomy research worldwide" in Nature News & Views.
This article required weeks of back-and-forth with the editor, the editor-in-chief, and Nature's lawyers, so I hope that means it's a good one.
During this process, I learned that satellite companies are so powerful and litigious that even giant publishers like Nature are terrified of getting sued. Which is...rather worrying.
Paywalled article here, I'll share once I have a non-paywalled link (hopefully soon): https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03610-5
The summary: astronomers spent a lot of time asking SpaceX and other large satellite operators to pretty please make their satellites fainter and/or use fewer satellites. And then BlueWalker 3 was launched by some tiny company and is one of the brightest things in the sky. Asking nicely isn't working: international regulation and pollution penalties are needed.
@sundogplanets My suggestion is to tax companies based on the brightness of satellites and use the tax income to fund observatories on the far side of the moon. You'll get dimmer satellites *and* super-dark-sky observatories.
@StarkRG @sundogplanets to whom would those taxes be paid. LEO satellites like Starlink fly over most nations on Earth. Who manages low earth orbit the UN?
[Full disclosure this post made over the Starlink internet at this AirBnB]
