The brightened night sky nobody actually wanted

A new paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters claims that a California company called Reflect Orbital plans to launch a series of satellites that will beam sunlight down to Earth at night. The satellites, called Eärendil-1 and part of a future constellation of 50,000 mirrors, will emit a bright light patch on demand. The research, led by Gáspár Bakos, modeled how sunlight would scatter from a single mirror, showing that a 54-meter satellite would emit a point of light with a magnitude of -16.7, about four magnitudes brighter than a full moon. The scattered glow from 14 kilometers away would outshine moonlight, and from 80 kilometers away, the light would be visible even with 400 mirrors on the same patch.

The study shows that the light from these satellites would create a diffuse background resembling dusk, bright enough to wash out all stars but the brightest. The brightness would be significant from 80 kilometers away, and the light would be visible from rural Pennsylvania, one of the darkest regions in the eastern United States. The company has already cleared the FCC for the project, with over 1,800 public comments and objections from the American Astronomical Society and dark-sky groups. The project is not about solving light pollution but about controlling what the sky looks like, with the potential to shape the visual experience of the night sky.

The article highlights the potential impact of the project on the visual landscape of the night sky, emphasizing the debate over who has the authority to decide how the sky looks. The research provides hard numbers on the brightness and visibility of the light emitted by the satellites, which could influence future discussions on light pollution and astronomical interference.

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