an article that is against satellites

It is best to go to the citation to see the graphics.
Citation is at
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/4/27/800029092/community/a-stark-image-of-the-night-sky/
I will admit, the 16,000 satellites up there sounds mighty high!

A Stark Image of the Destruction of the Night Sky

by AKALib
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Monday, April 27, 2026 at 6:43:44p PDT

Attribution: Uli Fehr
This is a pic of Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS), trapped in a celestial 
cage of light streaks formed by LEO satellites racing across the sky in 
this 10-minute exposure image.

It is a stark example of how billionaires, one in particular, are 
destroying the night sky and ground-based astronomy, in the same way 
they have been ravaging mother Earth and the atmosphere.

Attribution: Uli Fehr

This is with ~10,000 orbiting satellites with sunlight reflecting off 
their solar panels and antennae. Now, imagine a million of them, each 
with a solar array ~10x larger, as proposed by SpaceX for orbital AI 
data centers. They will destroy humanity itself.

The horror! The horror!

Image Credit & Copyright: Uli Fehr
Image source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260427.html
Image taken two weeks ago from Bavaria, Germany.

Note that to the human eye, these satellites appear as points of light 
moving slowly across the sky.

I can write a lot more about these modern-day monstrosities, but this 
picture speaks louder than words.

Besides light pollution and interference, there is another set of 
dangers facing Earth due to metallic particulate pollution from 
satellite reentries.

Within 15 years, plummeting satellites could release enough aluminum to 
alter winds, temps in the stratosphere – 
https://cires.colorado.edu/news/within-15-years-plummeting-satellites-could-release-enough-aluminum-alter-winds-temp
Potential Ozone Depletion From Satellite Demise During Atmospheric 
Reentry in the Era of Mega-Constellations – 
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL109280
Metals from spacecraft reentry in stratospheric aerosol particles – 
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2313374120
For those worried about space debris and the potential for the Kessler 
Syndrome, here are some sobering stats from ESA – 
https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Space_Debris/Space_debris_by_the_numbers. 
These do not account for a million additional large data center satellites.

Also, see “An Orbital House of Cards: Frequent Megaconstellation Close 
Conjunctions” at https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09643

The following charts shows the total number of satellites in Earth orbit 
– existing plus proposed.

Source: “Satellite megaconstellations will threaten space-based 
astronomy” – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09759-5

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Comment by agnessue.

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agnessue
15 hrs ago
OMG This is disgusting. Not only is our country being destroyed by crap 
criminals but now our night sky is toast. I will never forget laying on 
a beach at a small up north WI state campground back in the 1970s and 
seeing the Milky Way and satellites and star constellations. No light 
pollution, just a clear night, no moon and stars everywhere. It was 
beautiful. Sadly, never to be experienced again.

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Comment by CathyM.

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CathyM
18 hrs ago
This is so utterly sickening! I can see it myself when I go out to look 
in, the night - someti nights those orbiting pieces of crap move with 
precision, one after the other, each just slightly skewed right - 
clearly forming a grid of observation (or possibly phone link) - but 
spoiling the view of night that always was so awesome. And then the 
weird "constellations" that are so annoyingly mechanical-looking... NO 
ONE should have the right to destroy space like that!!

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Comment by DesiderataDetritus.

View the profile of "DesiderataDetritus"

DesiderataDetritus
19 hrs ago
I do also miss seeing the night sky, but, TBH, I'm more affected in my 
"relatively rural" area by the shopping centers and recent developments 
that have been built up. Their lights glow up the sky-- and, as has been 
shown, and we know, affect the migratory and habits of the critters that 
share the planet with us. I regret to say, astronomy is probably best 
moved out of low earth orbit; especially radio astronomy to the far side 
of the moon. Teaching kids the constellations-- will be from wikipedia 
not the skies.

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Reply by agnessue.

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agnessue
14 hrs ago
Reply to DesiderataDetritus
I actually called a friend out about the light pollution from their new 
church in my area back in the 1990s. She said that they followed code. I 
said why does that building need to be that light up? They did actually 
get rid of their up lights and converted to down lights, but it was 
still way too much.

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Comment by Noodles.

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Noodles
21 hrs ago
It's time for Democrats to start regulating this all with the EU as soon 
as we can. There's also some possibility of a low Earth orbit Kessler 
effect where if some get damaged and don't de-orbit soon enough the 
shrapnel traveling at thousands of miles an hour begins taking out ever 
more satellites as the catastrophe grows. Which would probably force 
early de-orbiting of others to prevent it from getting worse.

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Reply by CathyM.

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CathyM
18 hrs ago
Reply to Noodles
I almost wish that would happen; take us down to the pre-internet, 
pre-global phone link time... no one ever calculates all this into the 
"cost" of a smart phone! >:-(

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Reply by Daneel.

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Daneel
8 hrs ago
Reply to Noodles
If Kessler Syndrome hits, there is no way to stop it. Irrespective of 
how many satellites are destroyed in the process in the lowest orbits 
around Earth, we will have to wait until all the space junk in the 
HIGHEST affected orbits spirals into the lower atmosphere (because by 
the time that is completed, all the junk in the lower orbits will long 
have been burned up, irrespective of the amount). If we are lucky and 
only orbits up to the Starlink region are affected, this could take a 
decade or so.

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Reply by AKALib.

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AKALib
6 hrs ago
Reply to Daneel
Since the SpaceX data center satellites will reside in orbits at 500 - 
2,000 km altitude, it will take thousands of years for orbital decay for 
satellites above 1,000 km, if they experience the Kessler Syndrome. I 
will add a graphic of satellites and their altitudes to the diary.

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Comment by DrBoomer.

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DrBoomer
23 hrs ago
What's a poor zillionaire to do? Nobody owns the night sky, so it is 
obviously in play. If you can't pollute-to-monetize the night sky, jeez, 
what can you monetize? Next you'll be claiming the zillionaires 
shouldn't use all the fresh water for AI power plants! Or they should 
not own all the arable land!

How silly. Haven't you seen the movie? There Can Only Be One.

/s

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Comment by EdFlynn.

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EdFlynn
23 hrs ago
Once these damn satellites destroy enough of the ozone, It'll only take 
a giant solar storm or coronal burst to take out most of humanity and 
civilization.


Reply by Daneel.

View the profile of "Daneel"

Daneel
20 hrs ago
Reply to EdFlynn
A coronal burst would not take out most of humanity even without the 
ozone layer, but civilisation, that could happen.

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Comment by Leilafile.

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Leilafile
1 day ago
I have had a very bad sense of foreboding ever since we started seeing 
strings of Space-X heading along the sky and we learned that Elon Musk 
was tiling over the sky with an unimaginably huge amount of small 
satellites under his control. This project needs to be stopped and 
reversed as soon as “our side” (and by our side, I mean the American 
People represented by elected officials that have demonstrated an intent 
to serve the public and have a record of faithfulness to our 
Constitution) regain the government. I’m not taking as a valid response 
that I’m some hysterical woman who is paranoid. I refer all of you back 
to the days, and possibly mere hours, following Trumps Inauguration, 
whereby Musk and his corps of young thugs were sent out to destroy our 
government, firing people who were career workers, and especially firing 
anyone who had the expertise to say “You shouldn’t do that because…” It 
continues. At the beginning of this month it was the U.S. Forest 
Service. Last week it was the National Science Board.

Now I do understand that bringing Internet connection to rural areas is 
a problem like our current problem of there being no electrical power 
line in rural ar...e...as..., oh, wait, there ARE power lines out in the 
far fields, forests, hills, and deserts...hmmm. Guess we got that done? Huh.

I’d say let’s cut this Musk guy off and give the problem over to people 
who are actually interested in helping out citizens -maybe a new 
government administration (oh...they can make a profit, run a business, 
doing this, if that’s the best option, but serving the country has to be 
in the contract... ) My argument isn’t that Musk makes money, it’s that 
he makes money with products for our country, but he’s not interested in 
the welfare of our country. (In fact I think it was pretty damn obvious 
he enjoyed wrecking our government.) Away with him!

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