#space-based-astronomy

#space-based-astronomy

Blurry streaks of light created by fast-moving artificial satellites are already known to mar images taken by ground-based observatories. Today, researchers report in Nature that space-based telescopes will not escape such interference as fleets of private satellites proliferate. The researchers found that in the next decade, satellite trails could taint roughly 96% of the images taken by some space-based telescopes, and a single image could contain as many as 92 streaks.

Included in the study was NASA's SPHEREx space telescope, the European Space Agency's proposed ARRAKIHS system, and China's planned Xuntian space telescope, as well as Hubble, all of which orbit at altitudes between about 450 and 800 kilometers. The findings suggest about 39.6 percent of Hubble's images and 96 percent of images from the other three telescopes would be affected by interference from satellites.