These companies all want sun-synchronous terminator orbits, so that they can be sunlit all the time*.
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Now Blue Origin's "Sunrise" which has the X-ring configurations. Here's from 30N on the winter solstice.
From the equator, you'd see the X directly overhead at 6pm. Lovely.
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Here's the future that the techbros want. Earth as a ringed planet.
What does that actually look like in the sky? Well, it depends on your latitude and the time of year. The worst time of year for sunlit Starlink satellites is summer, but due to these orbits, the worst time for sunlit sun-synchronous terminator orbits is actually the wintertime.
Kessler Syndrome Here We Come!
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From the equator, you'd see the X directly overhead at 6pm. Lovely.
@sundogplanets and that is not even taking into consideration the damage such satellite constellations do to the atmosphere. Just the few tons of aluminum starlink is dumping into the atmosphere are already a big source of concern, 800m*m armatures raining from the sky sounds like what disaster movies are made of
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From the equator, you'd see the X directly overhead at 6pm. Lovely.
From the far north (or far south), you'd see one of the rings continuously, all through the long winter night (which could be 24 hours of darkness and near-darkness). But the satellites will keep you company! Ugh. Gross. There would be more bright satellites than bright stars, all night long.
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@sundogplanets and that is not even taking into consideration the damage such satellite constellations do to the atmosphere. Just the few tons of aluminum starlink is dumping into the atmosphere are already a big source of concern, 800m*m armatures raining from the sky sounds like what disaster movies are made of
@sundogplanets ah I see you mentioned it in the conclusion! Nice!
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From the far north (or far south), you'd see one of the rings continuously, all through the long winter night (which could be 24 hours of darkness and near-darkness). But the satellites will keep you company! Ugh. Gross. There would be more bright satellites than bright stars, all night long.
And then there's SpaceX's freaking ridiculous million satellite filing. I had to reduce the frame rate for this animation because it made my computer (and me) sad. We called this the "overalls" configuration. Giant overalls, in the sky. Anytime the megaconstellation is sunlit, there are more satellites than stars visible in the sky.
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And then there's SpaceX's freaking ridiculous million satellite filing. I had to reduce the frame rate for this animation because it made my computer (and me) sad. We called this the "overalls" configuration. Giant overalls, in the sky. Anytime the megaconstellation is sunlit, there are more satellites than stars visible in the sky.
Relatedly, Hugh Lewis just recently posted a paper showing that even by making the most conservative assumptions possible about size and orbits, and ignoring everything else that's already in orbit, all 3 of these proposed megaconstellations have so many satellites that they could cause Kessler Syndrome BY THEMSELVES https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.29644
So, the good news is that we'll never have a ring like this. The bad news is, HELLOOOO Kessler Syndrome!
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And then there's SpaceX's freaking ridiculous million satellite filing. I had to reduce the frame rate for this animation because it made my computer (and me) sad. We called this the "overalls" configuration. Giant overalls, in the sky. Anytime the megaconstellation is sunlit, there are more satellites than stars visible in the sky.
@sundogplanets Did you do the simulations for all of the constellations at once? Does the night sky remains even visible?
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Relatedly, Hugh Lewis just recently posted a paper showing that even by making the most conservative assumptions possible about size and orbits, and ignoring everything else that's already in orbit, all 3 of these proposed megaconstellations have so many satellites that they could cause Kessler Syndrome BY THEMSELVES https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.29644
So, the good news is that we'll never have a ring like this. The bad news is, HELLOOOO Kessler Syndrome!
I'll end with my favourite sentence from our paper: "This new, anthropogenic sky feature would even be easily visible in a light-polluted city: the natural patterns of the star-filled night sky that have been a source of wonder and knowledge for all of human history will have been erased by urban light pollution and then replaced by human-made artificial patterns."
This is stupid. Stop launching satellites just because you can, techbros.
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Just thinking about this - does filling the sky with these satellites make locating/tracking large asteroids on possible collision course with earth more difficult?
@kigelia @hannorein Yes.
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Relatedly, Hugh Lewis just recently posted a paper showing that even by making the most conservative assumptions possible about size and orbits, and ignoring everything else that's already in orbit, all 3 of these proposed megaconstellations have so many satellites that they could cause Kessler Syndrome BY THEMSELVES https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.29644
So, the good news is that we'll never have a ring like this. The bad news is, HELLOOOO Kessler Syndrome!
@sundogplanets I expect the disgusting megaconstellation CEOs will reply that of course it's all possible, and just trust them to know how and stop complaining.
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@SteveBellovin Thanks!
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Relatedly, Hugh Lewis just recently posted a paper showing that even by making the most conservative assumptions possible about size and orbits, and ignoring everything else that's already in orbit, all 3 of these proposed megaconstellations have so many satellites that they could cause Kessler Syndrome BY THEMSELVES https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.29644
So, the good news is that we'll never have a ring like this. The bad news is, HELLOOOO Kessler Syndrome!
Did Huey Lewis share the News?
The good news is, I've read various science fiction stories and settings affected by Kessler Syndrome, and they seem fun. Let me go review them. Wait... no... oh, no...
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I'll end with my favourite sentence from our paper: "This new, anthropogenic sky feature would even be easily visible in a light-polluted city: the natural patterns of the star-filled night sky that have been a source of wonder and knowledge for all of human history will have been erased by urban light pollution and then replaced by human-made artificial patterns."
This is stupid. Stop launching satellites just because you can, techbros.
That was my thought… the glorious band of the Milky Way that most urbanites don’t even know they are missing anymore will be replaced by a bright, gaudy tech band that will shine through even the worst light pollution.
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That was my thought… the glorious band of the Milky Way that most urbanites don’t even know they are missing anymore will be replaced by a bright, gaudy tech band that will shine through even the worst light pollution.
@DavidM_yeg
Who'd have thunk Star Wars would take this shape?
@sundogplanets -
@sundogplanets
Great and important work. But I'm not sure I would have used the same title. When reading about rings in the abstract, I noticed that I had immediately beautiful images of planets with rings in my mind. Even though I know that it will be horrible.
@hannorein -
Here's the future that the techbros want. Earth as a ringed planet.
What does that actually look like in the sky? Well, it depends on your latitude and the time of year. The worst time of year for sunlit Starlink satellites is summer, but due to these orbits, the worst time for sunlit sun-synchronous terminator orbits is actually the wintertime.
@sundogplanets
Arrrgh! -
From the far north (or far south), you'd see one of the rings continuously, all through the long winter night (which could be 24 hours of darkness and near-darkness). But the satellites will keep you company! Ugh. Gross. There would be more bright satellites than bright stars, all night long.
@sundogplanets Really interesting renders. Have you calculated the total brightness? Like is it "oh there's a ridiculous quantity of star-like points" or "now the ground is lit like half moonlight all the time"?
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Now Blue Origin's "Sunrise" which has the X-ring configurations. Here's from 30N on the winter solstice.
@sundogplanets they really took the Eye of Sauron as a challenge, huh
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@sundogplanets Really interesting renders. Have you calculated the total brightness? Like is it "oh there's a ridiculous quantity of star-like points" or "now the ground is lit like half moonlight all the time"?
@wikkit I thought about this as I've laid awake in the middle of the night. Would the rings cast shadows??? UGH. I should actually calculate that at some point...
