3225: Satellite Pollution

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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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.

This comic satirizes that talking about a hypothetical satellite company that launches *deliberately* inaccurate starmaps to be overlaid across the night sky.

Transcript

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[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).]

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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Discussion

I'm surprised this isn't Black Hat's operation RDiMartino (talk) 21:34, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

He created the company, Cueball is Marketing. Barmar (talk) 21:49, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Space mirrors have been in the news lately. 2603:8081:9700:1224:0:0:0:3 03:50, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

As explained in https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ this wouldn't work anyway since the banner would be moving at 7.8 km/s, or else it would need to be hung from a space-elevator-like counterweight located beyond GSO. If cueball accomplishes THAT kind of feat, I think the astronomers would be more impressed than annoyed. 2A02:590:121B:4001:9505:CE66:9EEB:2974 21:42, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
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