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Satellite Pollution

|< < Prev #3225 (March 27, 2026)

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

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.

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.]

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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