Notices by Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)

All the roads between my house and campus are still labelled "travel not recommended" so I'm going to cancel my in-person classes today, even though the university didn't. Time to record a couple of lectures for my students to watch instead of the in-person classes (astro 101 is black holes today, too! That's one of my favourite in-person lectures. Sigh.)

Good* morning

*It's below -20C windchill, there are 6 foot tall snowdrifts around the barn, the roads are all closed, the schoolbus is cancelled (!), but the goats need to be fed and my university classes are apparently NOT cancelled. It's going to be A Day.

I've gotten a few questions/comments about "lights on satellites" so time for a quick refresher: satellites reflect sunlight long after sunset, they do not have lights, they are just big and shiny. It's a lot more complicated than "why don't they just turn the lights off?"

Here's a great set of videos put together by @JohnBarentine and the IAU-CPS community engagement hub to learn more about satellites: https://cps.iau.org/community-engagement-hub/satcons-101/

A collaborator found out that the US State Dept is seeking public input on whether "satellite signature reduction" should be subject to ITAR regs.

Translation: should satellite operators who make their satellites fainter (in order to not destroy the night sky quite as much) be allowed to talk about how they did it?

So some of my collaborators and I put together a quick and easy template for you to email the US State Dept and tell them this shouldn't be secret info:

http://kesslerrebellion.com/take-action-2024-11-17

@Trevorgoodchild Yeah - my take is that the State Dept assumes that anything that makes satellites fainter must be for espionage purposes. Even though with 10,000 sats already in orbit and tens of thousands more planned, astronomers desperately need all sats to be fainter in order to keep doing science at all. (Of course, I don't think we'll actually get to that many satellites before someone screws up and puts us into Kessler Syndrome, but that's a different discussion...)

Will it make a difference? Possibly.

Will satellite builders actually make their satellites fainter? Gosh I hope so.

Will they actually talk to each other about how they do it? Probably not. But if that tech is subject to ITAR regulations, they definitely won't.

Are there more important things to worry about? Oh my yes. But how often does the US State Dept ask for public input on something that affects the night sky? Now's your chance to run the experiment and see if they listen!

Good morning

This just never gets old.

I just have to take a moment to brag about this loaf of sourdough, which is undoubtedly the best I've ever made! And I did it in the laziest way possible! I didn't even knead it, just mixed sourdough starter, flour, salt, and whey, and let it sit overnight before baking.

DELICIOUS. Take that, terrible grocery store bread.

Hey cool I'm in the first line of a nice WaPo info-graphic-opinion piece! https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/space-trash-debris-spacex/?itid=hp_opinions_p001_f021

Had a nice weekend focused on small things I can actually make better. Picked the last of the carrots, fed lots of carrots, old apples, and pumpkins to the animals, had an evening out stargazing with friends.

Of course, there were a truly stunning number of satellites - I saw THREE Starlink trains, and I'm not even sure how to quantify how ridiculously many sats there were - way more than 10% of visible stars close to zenith (which was my horrifying prediction from a few years ago. Fuck.)

I'm guessing the artificial satellite thing come from badly measured astrometry (they say they think it's hollow?!) But it's bizarre that it's discussed in such a matter-of-fact way in this book, and I've never heard any of that. Seems like it should be a cautionary tale told to first year astro students about jumping to conclusions from badly measured orbits (....cough cough Planet 9 cough cough...)

My partner randomly found a copy of the 1966 book "Intelligent Life in the Universe" by Shklovky & Sagan in a thrift store. It's like a really great intro astronomy textbook, but with a few really WILD statements thrown in here and there.

Like the fact that there isn't life on all the planets in our Solar System somehow apparently disproves Communism? (WHAT. That one really isn't explained).

But the wildest statement: Phobos is probably an artificial satellite. WHAT WHAT WHAT?

Ok friends. Today is an anxiety party (to varying degrees, for pretty much everyone).

As a tiny bit of positive, I'm going to try to post some cute and some pretty, peaceful pictures throughout the day (I have to say, scrolling through here this morning I've seen a lot of people have the same strategy!)

Sending peace and fluffiness.

Time to explain all the the ways that Starlink (and other megaconstellations too) are completely terrible for just about everything to the Yukon RASC chapter.

But first, let me check the time zone conversions for the 73rd time! I don't get super nervous before talks anymore (especially not Zoom talks), but I do worry about messing up time zone conversions...

@JustOneMoreThing I actually have zero! (All our media stuff is just through computers, no TVs or stereos). Which is good, because if I had any remotes they would be lost all the freaking time.

@PhoenixSerenity @obviousdwest WHOA I had no idea they were "donating" starlink equipment to activists. Wow. Good on you for not taking it at face value...techbros NEVER give away stuff for free!

It's now official, over the next few months, I'll be transitioning in to become one of the 2 co-chairs of the American Astronomical Society's Committee on the Protection of Astronomy and the Space Environment https://compasse.aas.org/

Despite the depressing developments in orbit, this is definitely my favourite committee I've ever been on. The members are AMAZING, we GET SHIT DONE, and it's a perfect way to channel my anger about satellites into powerful and productive actions.

My students are writing an exam right now. Only 11 students out of the 12-student, in-person class showed up to this exam, and there are 2 students who I have never seen before. They have never ever come to lecture, not even once. That is... really something.

Did I made my class *too* accessible? (I mean, I skipped loads of classes as an undergrad, but that's because I was at Caltech and the profs all HATED teaching and were bad at it. I sure hope I'm better than that?!) Hmph.

Also, in case anyone is counting, Starlink is now 63% of all active satellites.

2 out of ever 3 satellites up there now are owned by that awful billionaire. He effectively controls Low Earth Orbit. That should terrify everyone.