CONSTELLATIONS
By the time a child (born today) reaches adulthood half of the stars that are visible in the night sky today will have disappeared. We are losing our connection to the natural night sky in all its glory. We have new human made constellations forming in our skies in the form of cubed shaped satellites that are slightly bigger than a Rubik’s cube.
On one hand these CubeSats (as they are known) can help us to monitor our environment, animal migration, aid in farming practices and help tackle climate change. On the other hand the addition of thousands of CubeSats and megaconstellations such as Starlink are reducing our visibility of the night sky, creating debris in our lower earth orbit and when they burn up in our atmosphere we are only just discovering that these satellites are adding plastics and chemicals to our oceans.
On one hand these CubeSats (as they are known) can help us to monitor our environment, animal migration, aid in farming practices and help tackle climate change. On the other hand the addition of thousands of CubeSats and megaconstellations such as Starlink are reducing our visibility of the night sky, creating debris in our lower earth orbit and when they burn up in our atmosphere we are only just discovering that these satellites are adding plastics and chemicals to our oceans.
