Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2026

8 ASTRO PUBLISHING SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2026 One million satellites pose grave threat to the night sky by ESO Bárbara Ferreira S ince 2019, the number of satel- lites orbiting Earth has increased rapidly, to over 14,000 today — dominated by SpaceX’s Starlink telecommunications satellites. Satel- lite proposals have also escalated, both in number and in potential impact. “Until now we have man- aged, but it’s getting worse,” stresses Olivier Hainaut, who has been in- volved in developing recommenda- tions to mitigate the impact of sat- ellite constellations on astronomy. While companies like SpaceX have taken measures to make their satel- lites less bright, current satellite pro- posals are going “beyond the limit” of what astronomy can withstand, he says. Hainaut, an astronomer at ESO for over 30 years, is the author of the peer-reviewed study on the impacts of satellite constellations accepted for publication in Astron- omy & Astrophysics .