Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Wednesday 8 January 2020
SpaceX launches 60 more satellites, trying to tone them down

By MARCIA DUNN the American Astronomi-
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. cal Society's committee on
(AP) — SpaceX launched light pollution, space de-
60 more mini internet satel- bris, and radio interference,
lites late Monday, this time and is working with SpaceX
testing a dark coating to on the issue. The matter is
appease stargazers. on the agenda, in fact, at
It's a "first step" compromise the society's conference in
between SpaceX and as- Hawaii this week.
tronomers fearful of hav- "Anything that darkens the
ing dark skies spoiled by satellites is a step in the right
hundreds and, eventually, direction," Hall said in an
thousands of bright satel- email Monday. He said it's
lites circling overhead. too soon to know whether
The Falcon 9 rocket blasted the dark coating will work,
into a cold, clear night sky, "but it definitely is just a first
recycled by SpaceX for step and not enough to
its fourth flight. As the first- mitigate the issues astrono-
stage booster flew to a ver- my will experience with the
tical landing on an ocean Starlinks."
platform, the Starlink satel- The Starlinks are initially
lites continued hurtling to- placed in a relatively low
ward orbit to join 120 similar orbit of 180 miles (290 kilo-
spacecraft launched last meteters), easily visible as
year. a long, strung-out cluster
Flight controllers applaud- A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., Monday evening, parading through the night
ed, and the launch com- Jan. 6, 2020. The rocket is carrying 60 Starlink communications satellites. sky. Over a few months,
mentator described the Associated Press krypton-powered thrusters
booster's fourth touchdown raise the satellites to a 340-
as "awesome." An hour lat- Musk plans to ultimately ber, astronomers com- Jeff Hall, director of the mile (550-kilometer) orbit.
er, all 60 satellites were free launch thousands of these plained how the bright sat- Lowell Observatory in The higher the orbit, the less
of their upper stage and compact flat-panel satel- ellite chain was hampering Flagstaff, Arizona, said the visible the satellites are from
making their own way in lites to provide global inter- their observations. In re- Starlinks have been just an the ground, according to
orbit. "It's a beautiful sight," net service. Each space- sponse, SpaceX came up occasional problem — so SpaceX. Even so, SpaceX
the commentator ob- craft is just 575 pounds (260 with a darkening treatment far — but noted the risk to said it's supplying astrono-
served. kilograms). to lessen reflectivity. The stargazing will grow as the my groups with the satellite
His Starlink fleet now num- After the first Starlink batch coating is being tested on constellation expands and coordinates in advance, so
bering 180, SpaceX found- of 60 was launched in May one of the newly launched other companies launch they can avoid the bright
er and chief executive Elon and the second in Novem- satellites. their own fleets. He heads flyover times.q

Titanic wave of star-forming

gases found in Milky Way

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. more stellar births, accord- — after a Harvard institute
(AP) — Astronomers have ing to the paper published — contains stellar nurser-
discovered a titanic wave in the journal Nature. ies once thought to be-
of star-forming gases prac- All these stellar nurseries, or long in a ring-shaped band
tically right under our noses star-forming blobs of gas, around the sun. The wave
in the Milky Way. are interconnected, ac- contains gases equivalent
Harvard University scientists cording to Harvard's Cath- to 3 million times the mass
reported Tuesday that this erine Zucker. Together, of the sun.
massive structure has been they form this wavy, gassy "It has completely trans-
hiding out in the Milky Way filament, why this shape is formed our understanding
This illustration provided by Harvard shows data from the “Rad- galaxy's spiral arm closest still a puzzle. of our galactic `neighbor-
cliffe Wave,” indicated in red, superimposed on an artist’s ren- to Earth. The sun is just 500 light years hood,' " Zucker said in an
dering of Milky Way galaxy. The researchers were build- away from the wave at its email. It "has been right in
Associated Press ing a 3-D map of our gal- closest point, according to front of our noses ... for mil-
axy's interstellar matter, us- lead author Joao Alves. lions of years, but we could
ing a star census gathered The team was shocked by not see it clearly until now."
by Europe's Gaia space- the discovery. No one ex- Launched in 2013, the Gaia
craft when they spotted pected "we live next to a spacecraft has measured
the wave-shaped struc- giant, wave-like collection the distances to close to 1
ture. It's an astounding 50 of gas — or that it forms the billion stars in our galaxy,
quadrillion miles (85 qua- local arm of the Milky Way," providing a precious, colos-
drillion kilometers) long and Harvard's Alyssa Goodman sal data base for uncover-
it's home to tens of thou- said in a statement. ing huge structures like the
sands of baby stars, with What's more, the structure Radcliffe Wave, according
the potential for countless dubbed Radcliffe Wave to scientists.q