| Satellite Pollution |
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Title text: We're working to make sure the images are as up-to-date and accurate as possible, with a minimum number of sponsored galaxies. |
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Explanation
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This is incomplete:
This page was created recently by a SATELLITE BOT SHOWING A FAKE XKCD COMIC. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!
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A common concern with new satellite constellations like Starlink is that the fact that they rely on large numbers, they make ground-based astronomy more difficult by adding more noise and possibly obscuring targets.
A more recent concern is the "collapse" of Google Image Search, where trying to find a real picture of a historical event or scientific phenomenon, will now produce an unwieldly amount of results produced by generative AI.
This comic satirizes the two by talking about a hypothetical satellite company that launches *deliberately* inaccurate starmaps to be overlaid across the night sky. This would not only obscure a fair amount of stars from view, but also show stars that don't actually exist in the night sky, thus providing confusion for astronomers, seeing stars not on their starmaps, & making them look unreliable. Why anyone would do this is unknown, with its only purpose to confuse & mess with people. However, it could be just the doings of a very certain someone...
Of course, such a plan would have many problems in implementing, such as the pure size & strength needed for the banner to survive in space, & be large enough to be noticed by casual observers. Also, the banner would need to have its own light source, powerful enough to be seen from earth. Such lights are not known to exist on Earth[citation needed].
The title text takes the concept further, implying that the company is somehow offering sponsorship to certain galaxies, despite galaxies not being known for being sentient, or able to provide a sponsorship. It is unclear how exactly these sponsorships are being done, possibly doing banners to advertise certain galaxies, though what for is unknown. Possibly to encourage people to visit the various sponsored galaxies, although many of them would be incredibly far away, & unreachable by current space travel.
Transcript
- [White Hat and Ponytail are standing on the left, Cueball is on the right, in front of a poster on the wall. The poster has a portion of the Earth at the bottom, with outer space above it. The space scene has lots of stars, along with a few nebulae and galaxies. Part of the space scene is enclosed in a quadrilateral (a slightly skewed rectangle) which is attached to a much smaller satellite. The quadrilateral itself is a picture of the night sky, showing an inaccurate picture of the stars.]
- Ponytail: Aren't you worried these will be disruptive for ground-based astronomy?
- Cueball: No, why?
- [Caption below comic:]
- My new company is being criticized for our satellites that deploy 100-mile-wide banners painted with inaccurate pictures of the night sky.
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This is a test. PoolloverNathan[stalk the blue seas] 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
- This is not. —While False (museum | talk | contributions | logs | rights | printable version | page information | what links there | related changes | Google search | current time: 14:05) 18:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
- A foreign student asked me to help fight against his math teacher. That was unusual. He was in that class for just a couple of weeks. The teacher's phone number was sent to me. The student asked me to spam-call the teacher. 172.71.155.55 22:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
here i'm just messing around in html, ignore this
furhhfghure guyrburgryhuyvfr "rvhru"
interesting way of writing quotations xd
- hmmm this one of putting "<p>" in a line break will come in handy for when i want it to start at the same place than the first line
- Please beware that <p> on mediawiki also disables automatic paragraph breaks, so you need a closing </p> or you'll break automatic paragraph formatting for the rest of the page. Zmatt (talk) 22:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
edit: da hek did that "</div>" come from An user who has no account yet (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
hi uh its hard to get here.
is this a reference to undocumented feature??? hmm... this is interesting.
108.162.241.216 02:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
yum yum [citation needed]
Hiuiedeixgeyceiyedhcdiedcve
{{trout}}
This is the leaderboard:
<a href=" [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab] "Cancel the meeting! Our cover is blown.">
More testing: hello doesthiswork (yesitdoes) This isn't a good name (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
hi 164.58.172.158 14:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
What is this??????????????????????
King Pando (
talk) 04:25, 10 March 2026 (UTC)
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