Starlink Says Its Dimmed New Satellites For Astronomers: 'Firmly Believe In The Importance Of Protecting The Night Sky'

Elon Musk‘s SpaceX has deployed solutions to dim its Starlink satellites and keep them from disrupting astronomical observations.

What Happened: New second-generation Starlink satellites are painted an extremely dark black on their angled surfaces and employ dielectric mirror films on their bottom surface, SpaceX said. The solutions were developed in-house in collaboration with leading astronomers and as a result, the new Starlink satellites are less bright in the sky despite being larger.

“We firmly believe in the importance of protecting the night sky for all to enjoy…,” wrote the rocket manufacturing on X, formerly Twitter.

However, during a few phases of flight including immediately after launch or while deorbiting, the satellites will continue to be visible. SpaceX will continue to find and implement technologies and techniques to further dim the satellites, it said in a statement.

Why It Matters: Experts have previously flagged the risks posed by an increasing number of satellites around Earth on astronomy.

With satellites crossing images captured by a telescope, they will need further close study and monitoring, says researchers in a study published in Nature Astronomy earlier this year.

Observations affected by artificial satellites can become unusable for scientific research, wasting a growing fraction of the research budget on costly infrastructures and mitigation efforts, said the study titled, "The Impact Of Satellite Trails On Hubble Space Telescope Observations."

Photo Courtesy: Shutterstock.com

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