Hi #IAUS385 attendants, before you mourn next time about someone else's impact, checkout yours using the travel footprint calculator https://travel-footprint-calculator.irap.omp.eu:
Madrid-La Palma: 728.3 kg CO2e
Paris-La Palma: 1.1 t CO2e
Rome-La Palma: 1.2 t CO2e
Frankfurt-La Palma: 1.3 tCO2e
New York-La Palma: 1.8 tCO2e
Sydney-La Palma: 6.4 tCO2e
I participated in a wonderful conference this week on the beautiful island of La Palma (Spain). It was IAU Symposium 385 about the protection of the dark and quiet skies from satellite constellation interference and pathways forward. #IAUS385
The conference was also featured in a nice Wired article https://www.wired.com/story/as-amazon-launches-project-kuiper-astronomers-debate-how-to-fix-a-satellite-filled-sky/
Ramin Skibba interviewed several of the participants for this, including myself.
@raulclima @salvabara es tremendo, esta semana en La Palma #IAUS385 sobre SATCONS y sus consecuencias.
@miangulo_95 Yet organising #IAUS385 on an island in the Atlantic Ocean which can only be decently reached by air plane is kind of being part of the problem.
En la #isladeLaPalma se celebra #IAUS385 Simposium para dar a conocer las últimas investigaciones sobre las megaconstelaciones. Es tremendo lo que estos satélites le está haciendo a las astronomía terrestre, pero también a la espacial. Esta es una de las diapositivas mostradas. Las rayas son las trazas que dejan los satélites en observaciones las observacionesz IAUCPS ha publicado en Nature sobre el Bluewalker3 . https://cps.iau.org/news/further-understanding-bluewalker-3s-impact-on-astronomy/
My working day started with the Today programme on #BBCRadio4 in the UK, and ended with As It Happens on #CBC in Canada! The middle was a conference in #LaPalma #IAUS385 😅
In @Nature today: "Huge new satellite outshines nearly every star in the sky" https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03054-x plus research article on the high optical brightness of this satellite. #IAUS385
(I took this myself on November 30th 2022 with my phone from the back garden. That streak is #BlueWalker3 passing through Cygnus 😳)
It is not inevitable yet how the story in orbit will unfold. Inevitability becomes the justification for moving forward, but it's not inevitable. The skies belong to all of us, not just humans, need to honour that through advocacy.
Noctalgia: "sky grief", she recently wrote a Science e-letter on this with @JohnBarentine: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-loss-of-dark-skies-is-so-painful-astronomers-coined-a-new-term-for-it1/
Advocates for a UN statement/treaty on safeguarding outer space as a shared commons of our cultural heritage
Points out that there's already a cost to satellites in research astronomy: brighter skies mean we can do less science with the same amount of taxpayer $ due to the actions of for-profit private companies. This hugely affects traditional stargazing, highlights effects on Wayfinding: dawn or dusk are when satellite light pollution is worst, when observations are most important for navigation.
Aparna Venkatesan: "I thank my students and my children for holding me accountable to the future" wow I wish we could all have that mentality! Highlighting the voyage of the Hokule`a using traditional Polynesian celestial navigation - tiny ship just returned to San Francisco.
We humans have an ancient relationship with the night sky, and we need to reclaim this before it's lost - the sky is currently being colonized by bright satellites.
Nick Campion talks about how SpaceX has powerful "sustainable" imagery + "helpful" narrative, but we're actually just re-doing violent colonization in space. How do we fight this?
We don't need to argue that there aren't benefits (there definitely are). SpaceX is essentially "greenwashing" the pollution they are producing - need to calculate TOTAL cost of satellite constellations (enviro, culture, human). "Our Space: not yours to destroy." Nature does not end as we leave the Earth.
#IAUS385
#IAUS385 seems to be mostly disconnected between the in-person part and the online part...this is very confusing - hope #DPS2023 does a better job when I switch over to that conference later today (and give a talk... side note: remind me NEVER to try to attend 2 simultaneous online conferences while also doing my normal teaching/farming/parenting stuff, this is nuts and I haven't even left the house yet)
Hilding Neilson @astrojipjawej just talked about how Indigenous treaties acknowledge the land, and ask the question "what can you give back to the land" rather than being purely exploitative like, say, the Outer Space Treaty or Artemis Accords. What can we give back to outer space? #IAUS385
Well, I got the time zone wrong and didn't get up stupidly early to watch talks, so I totally missed the one session I really wanted to see at #IAUS385 - Indigenous perspectives on satellite pollution. Sigh. I hope there are going to be recordings available...
Gosh, I'd forgotten about Project West Ford (aka Project Needles), a US military plan to launch 480,000,000 needle-shaped dipoles into orbit to provide long-distance communication capabilities. Experiments were actually carried out in the early 1960s, and some of the needles are still in orbit.
Parallels with today's proliferation of satellite megaconstallations, including the vocal protests from astronomers. #IAUS385
Really good to hear some Indigenous perspectives on the sky and cultural impact of megaconstellations on the first day of #IAUS385
The (US) Government Accountability Office wrote a report titled "Large Constellations of Satellites: Mitigating Environmental and Other Effects", presented at #IAUS385 by Karen Howard.
One important point from the discussion: if the USA limits launches, operators will just go somewhere else. This issue needs global collaboration and cooperation.
Read the report: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105166
This week I'm virtually attending IAU Symposium 385:
Astronomy and Satellite Constellations: Pathways Forward.
There are so many satellites now in orbit, and the numbers are only going to increase. How do we continue to do astronomy (professional, amateur and cultural) in this new environment?
https://research.iac.es/congreso/iaus385/pages/programme.php
I spent all weekend happily doing farm work. Now I have to finish my 2 talks for #DPS2023 (one is TOMORROW EEEK), figure out how to watch the talks remotely, figure out how much of the #IAUS385 meeting on satcons I'm going to watch (and how to watch it - talks are approximately 2am to 10am my time so...ew), also figure out what I'm going to lecture about in 2 classes.
It's going to be Quite A Week.
