According to Futurism, a new NASA-led study is warning that light pollution from private satellite constellations is now a severe threat to space-based astronomy. The research, led by astrophysicist Alejandro Serrano Borlaff, concludes that if all planned satellite projects launch over the next decade, one out of every three images from the Hubble Space Telescope will be contaminated. SpaceX alone has FCC permission for 12,000 satellites and is eyeing another 30,000, with researchers estimating a potential total of 500,000 new satellites in low Earth orbit in the coming years. The problem is even worse for future telescopes, with the European ARRAKIHS mission facing light streaks in 96% of its images and NASA’s SPHEREx seeing up to 99% contamination. The study, published in Nature, is the first to specifically investigate this impact on space telescopes, signaling a critical juncture for the field.
The stakes for space science
Here’s the thing: we’ve been talking about satellite streaks ruining ground-based astronomy for years. But this? This is different. The Hubble Space Telescope is arguably the most important scientific instrument ever built. Its data is foundational. The idea that a third of its future observations could be compromised isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a direct attack on a core pillar of modern astrophysics. And the projections for future missions are frankly apocalyptic. A telescope like SPHEREx, designed to map the entire sky in infrared, being rendered nearly useless? That’s not a minor setback. It means entire fields of study—like the search for the universe‘s earliest galaxies or the mapping of cosmic water ice—could be stillborn.
A regulatory nightmare
So what’s the solution? The study authors point to international regulators needing to band together to limit commercial activity in LEO. But let’s be real. Does anyone see that happening? The commercial genie is out of the bottle. The US, which licenses most of these satellites through the FCC, seems wholly committed to a “launch first, ask questions later” approach for its commercial space sector. The economic and strategic incentives for these mega-constellations are simply too powerful. We’re basically witnessing a classic tragedy of the commons play out in real-time, but the commons is the entire sky. And the entities with the power to enforce rules are the same ones most invested in the economic exploitation of that space.
Is there any hope?
Maybe. But it’s slim and technical. Companies like SpaceX have made efforts to darken their satellites with visors and different coatings. That helps, but it’s a mitigation, not a solution, for the sheer scale of what’s planned. The other path is computational—developing better software to identify and subtract satellite trails from images. But that’s not a perfect fix either. It adds noise, consumes precious processing time, and for certain delicate observations, like hunting for extremely faint objects, you can’t just “clean” the data without losing the signal. The core truth is this: unregulated exponential growth in LEO is incompatible with the kind of pristine, dark-sky science that space telescopes were built to provide. We’re going to have to choose, or more likely, we’re going to let the market choose for us. And that means accepting a permanently degraded view of the cosmos.
