Hubble images photobombed by space hardware on the up
- Reference: 1677873607
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/03/03/hubble_satellite_interference/
- Source link:
Using deep learning algorithms to scan historic images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope between 2002 and 2021, researchers found 2.7 ± 0.2 percent of images with a typical exposure time of 11 minutes contained at least one satellite trail.
But over that period, the likelihood of a space hardware photobomb have increased sharply. The mean satellite fraction for the Advanced Camera Survey/Wide-Field Channel (ACS/WFC) affected increased from 2.8 ± 0.2 percent in 2002-2005 to 4.3 ± 0.4 percent in 2018-2021, for example.
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The researchers found that the proportion of images affected depends on the size of the field of view, exposure time, filter and pointing. "With the growing number of artificial satellites currently planned, the fraction of Hubble Space Telescope images crossed by satellites will increase in the next decade and will need further close study and monitoring," said the resesarch [2]published in Nature Astronomy .
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The work was led by Sandor Kruk, post-doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics.
[5]UK antitrust watchdog provisionally clears Viasat's $7.3B buy of Inmarsat
[6]SpaceX lobs second-gen Starlink satellites into orbit
[7]Amazon convinces FCC it can avoid space junk chaos
[8]SpaceX tells astronomers: Fine, we'll try to stop Starlink spoiling stargazing sessions
Speaking to the [9]New York Times , Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said the results were concerning.
"We're going to be living with this problem. And astronomy will be impacted. There will be science that can't be done. There will be science that's significantly more expensive to do. There will be things that we miss," he said.
According to Scientific American , SpaceX's Starlink internet satellite constellation is one of the culprits when it comes to ground-based observations. California's Zwicky Transient Facility observes for supernova explosions from dying stars and asteroids passing close to Earth by scanning the sky every two days to spot temporary brightening or sudden appearance of objects that remain visible only briefly.
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In January, [11]the publication reported that a review of data going back to 2019, the year when SpaceX began launching Starlink, showed that the telescope's views with streaks were likely to be the result of satellite interference. ®
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[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-01903-3
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[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/28/spacex_starlink_satellites/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/10/amazon_project_kuipers_space_junk/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/13/spacex_starlink_astronomy_agreement/
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[11] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacexs-starlink-satellites-leave-streaks-in-asteroid-hunting-telescopes-images/
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Doubling of sat streaks
One would hope that hubble spends most of it's time not looking down, so there's an awful lot of space that isn't going to have any starlink sats in view... in fact it's only really looking in either polar direction that you'd expect starlink to be an issue at all... of course there are many more geostationary sats as well...
The lived experience of a Space Telescope
Handily, the article contains data, so we don't have to guess. It says 4.3% of images taken between 2018-2021 contain at least one satellite trail. And that's up from 2.8% in 2002-2005.
Re: Doubling of sat streaks
There was a rumour that NASA wanted to use the CIA's collimator to check the Hubble primary and secondary mirrors were correctly shaped, but the CIA insisted they would only allow that if they could point Hubble downwards at various times. NASA could not agree to that as Hubble is an international civilian project, so s there was no collimator large enough it was launched and needed a repair. Now you would have thought that the CIA would have benefitted from the good publicity of helping NASA, but it seems that was not sufficient.
Re: Doubling of sat streaks
I thought the light from looking down would damage it. [thoughtful emoji]
"The researchers found that the proportion of images affected depends on the size of the field of view, exposure time, filter and pointing"
NSS.
Doubling of sat streaks
If we miss the big impactor because it was behind a streak, nobody is going to care about their satellite broadband.
Hubble is at the same altitude as the upper Starlink shell. Does that mean they're more or less likely to impinge on observations?
Though perhaps the loss of Arecibo is a bigger problem for planetary defence, as there's nothing else built or even planned that can do the active radar scans that give the most accurate and precise measurements of orbital elements.