Study: Hubble Telescope Images Increasingly Spoiled by Commercial Satellites Written 3 March 2023

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Hubble Space Telescope | Credit: NASA

The New York Times reports a study published Thursday by the journal Nature Astronomy “reveals an increase in the percentage of images recorded by the Hubble that are spoiled by passing satellites” as of data through 2021. Thousands more satellites “have been launched since then by SpaceX and other companies, and many more are expected to go to orbit in the years ahead, affecting the Hubble and potentially other telescopes in space.” Their results show “that the chance of seeing a satellite in a Hubble image from 2009 to 2020 is only 3.7 percent,” rising to 5.9 percent in 2021, which the researchers say corresponds to SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.
Full Story (New York Times – Subscription publication)