WARNING: Our Night Sky Will Be Forever Ruined And Illuminated After July 14th – Here’s Why
We as earthlings have always wondered about what’s going on out in the great wide universe. We guessed, and then we charted, and then we eventually started sending things out into space, outside earth’s atmosphere, in hopes of learning more about the unknown universe, and we have learned a lot. The technology that is orbiting the earth has given us handy things like GPS and all sorts of other things that big brother no doubt uses to spy on us.
There’s even an American flag planted on the moon now because of this exploration (unless you believe the moon landing was faked, in which case there’s an extra flag planted somewhere in the New Mexico/Arizona area). And while we won that race, the issues of earth were more or less unchanged. Countries still war and technology still surges ahead.
One country that the United States has a long history of dissidence with is the same one that almost beat us to the moon. As if we weren’t having enough problems with Russia, they’ve now decided to launch their own technology into space that will no doubt mar the experience of stargazing for the entire planet. If you love looking at the sky, stock up now, because in the middle of next month Russia will be putting its own satellite that will be shining brightly.
Via Daily Mail:
“Russian scientists working on the Mayak satellite – which is set to be the brightest ‘star’ in the night sky – have announced that it is nearing completion.
Engineers have crowd-funded around $20,000 (£15,400), which is enough to build and test the satellite which is due to be launched in a fortnight.
Its designers say it could be used to combat space junk by using a parachute-like structure to lower the orbits of debris so they can burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
However, some astronomers have slammed the creation, which is no larger than a rugby ball, calling it a ‘nonsense’ project that could ‘ruin’ dark skies for everyone.
Called the ‘Mayak’ or ‘Beacon’, the satellite is set to outshine everything in the sky, apart from the sun, thanks to a giant reflective sheet of material.
The controversial satellite is due to be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday 14 July.
Its the work of engineers from the University of Mechanical Engineering in Moscow.
‘We fight so hard for dark skies in and around our planet,’ Nick Howes, an astronomer and former deputy director of the Kielder Observatory in Northumberland, told IFLScience.
‘To see this being potentially ruined by some ridiculous crowdfunded nonsense makes my heart simply despair.’
The launch of Mayak is expected to be taken up in a Soyuz 2 rocket, with help from Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.
The team is planning to place the spacecraft in a sun-synchronous orbit 370 miles (600km) above the ground.
This means it will always be in the path of sunlight, so will always be shining at different locations on Earth as it rotates.
The small spacecraft will launch a giant pyramid-shaped solar reflector in orbit.
‘Russian cubestat ‘Mayak’ to launch Jul 14 will deploy a reflector that may be as bright as mag minus 10. Astronomers likely to be annoyed’, tweeted Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
He also noted that with telescopes scanning much of the sky each night it ‘could cause problems’.
Facebook user Paulonius Woodham, who says he is a teacher and student in Perth, wrote on his Facebook; ‘Brightest star in our night sky? No just a useless piece of junk that they will send up to join all the [sic] other useless junk polluting orbit’.
The reflector is 170 square feet (16 square metres) in size and made of a thin polymer film 20 times thinner than human hair.
Each edge will be 2.7 meters (9ft) long, with a total surface area of 6 square meters (65 square feet).