“What I find astounding is that whatever we do will affect everyone on the planet,” Dr. Drimmel said. Alex Parker, a planetary astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute, noted on Twitter that if these satellites orbit in the thousands, they could soon outnumber all of the stars visible to the naked eye. And even if just 500 are observable at any given time, Dr. Drimmel warns that it will be difficult to pick out constellations among those moving lights. But Amazon will assess space safety and concerns about light pollution as they design their satellites, the press officer said. Another entrant, Telesat, said its smaller constellation would operate at higher orbits than some companies’ satellites, making their satellites fainter.

Source: New York Times June 01, 2019 09:00 UTC