星鏈衛(wèi)星徹底炸毀了那場(chǎng)罕見的“獨(dú)角獸”流星雨的鏡頭

星鏈衛(wèi)星徹底炸毀了那場(chǎng)罕見的“獨(dú)角獸”流星雨的鏡頭

Starlink has had its fair share of critics in the last few months. The ambitious SpaceX project to launch up to 42,000 satellites and provide worldwide internet access has the International Astronomical Union, scientists, and stargazers nervous about the implications of such a huge number of satellites in our orbit.

在過(guò)去的幾個(gè)月里，星鏈衛(wèi)星受到了不少批評(píng)。美國(guó)太空探索技術(shù)公司(SpaceX)雄心勃勃地計(jì)劃發(fā)射多達(dá)4.2萬(wàn)顆衛(wèi)星，并在全球范圍內(nèi)提供互聯(lián)網(wǎng)接入。這一計(jì)劃令國(guó)際天文學(xué)聯(lián)盟(International Astronomical Union)、科學(xué)家和天文愛好者感到不安，他們擔(dān)心我們的軌道上有這么多衛(wèi)星會(huì)造成什么影響。

The recent Monocerotid meteor showers did nothing to calm down the critics, after a large train of satellites photobombed the natural display in the early morning over a number of days last week.

最近的單片流星雨并沒有平息批評(píng)家們的批評(píng)，在上周的幾天里，一大批衛(wèi)星在清晨對(duì)自然景觀進(jìn)行了照片轟炸。

You can see what this looks like in footage taken by the Global Meteor Network (GMN) camera at the Farra Observatory in Italy on November 25 (the satellite bombing begins just after 1:00):

11月25日，全球流星網(wǎng)絡(luò)(GMN)攝像機(jī)在意大利法拉天文臺(tái)拍攝了這段視頻，你可以看到它是什么樣子的。

It looks impressive on the timelapse, but it looks even more insane on the GMN co-added images:

它看起來(lái)令人印象深刻的時(shí)間推移，但它看起來(lái)更瘋狂的GMN聯(lián)合圖像:

It was a real eye-opener, Bill Cooke, the lead of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office told Space Weather, after he saw the video.

美國(guó)宇航局流星體環(huán)境辦公室負(fù)責(zé)人比爾·庫(kù)克在觀看了這段視頻后告訴《太空氣象》說(shuō):“這真是讓人大開眼界。”

This kind of thing could force us to change how we write software to auto-detect meteors.

“這類事情可能會(huì)迫使我們改變編寫自動(dòng)探測(cè)流星軟件的方式。”

And this isn't just on one camera. The GMN have over 150 meteor cameras across the world, and around half got a nice dose of Starlink in their view.

這不僅僅是在一臺(tái)攝像機(jī)上。GMN在全球擁有超過(guò)150個(gè)流星照相機(jī)，其中大約一半在他們的視野中得到了良好的星光。

Here's another GMN image taken on November 25, this one from Cherkessk in Russia.

這是GMN在11月25日拍攝的另一張照片，來(lái)自俄羅斯切爾凱斯克。

As you can probably tell from these shots, this situation is far from ideal if you want to be studying the night sky. The GMN explains that in this instance the satellites – which were launched on November 11 - didn't interfere with the meteor observations, but they were nervous about how this would affect their capabilities in the near future.

你可以從這些照片中看出，如果你想研究夜空，這種情況遠(yuǎn)非理想。GMN解釋說(shuō)，在這種情況下，11月11日發(fā)射的衛(wèi)星沒有干擾流星觀測(cè)，但他們擔(dān)心這將如何影響他們?cè)诓痪玫膶?lái)的能力。

One has to be concerned how will our skies look like when hearing that there are plans to launch a total of 42,000 satellites, University of Western Ontario meteor researcher Denis Vida stated in a GMN blog post.

西安大略大學(xué)的氣象研究員丹尼斯·維達(dá)在GMN的一篇博客文章中說(shuō):“當(dāng)聽說(shuō)計(jì)劃發(fā)射42000顆衛(wèi)星時(shí)，人們不得不擔(dān)心我們的天空會(huì)是什么樣子。”

This might completely deny us to do any optical meteor observations as soon as 2024.

“這可能會(huì)完全阻止我們?cè)?024年進(jìn)行任何光學(xué)流星觀測(cè)。”

It's important to note that the current Starlink 'trains' we keep seeing in videos and scientific imaging shouldn't be as intrusive in a few weeks, as they are still rising to their final altitude. When the satellites are in their final position, they won't all be in a line, or crossing the same patch of sky at once.

需要注意的是，我們?cè)谝曨l和科學(xué)成像中不斷看到的目前的Starlink“列車”在幾周內(nèi)應(yīng)該不會(huì)有那么大的干擾，因?yàn)樗鼈內(nèi)栽谏仙阶詈蟮母叨取．?dāng)衛(wèi)星在它們的最后位置時(shí)，它們不會(huì)排成一條直線，也不會(huì)同時(shí)穿越同一塊天空。

Additionally, Elon Musk's SpaceX is looking into making the satellites a little less shiny, so they won't reflect the morning Sun in the way we keep seeing.

此外，埃隆·馬斯克(Elon Musk)的太空探索技術(shù)公司(SpaceX)正在考慮讓這些衛(wèi)星變得不那么閃亮，這樣它們就不會(huì)像我們一直看到的那樣反射早晨的太陽(yáng)。

However, the number of satellites SpaceX is looking to shoot into space is completely unprecedented.

然而，SpaceX打算發(fā)射到太空的衛(wèi)星數(shù)量是前所未有的。

Astronomers are likely to have some pretty understandable problems getting used to the change to our night skies - some have even predicted the end of ground-based microwave radio astronomy.

天文學(xué)家們可能會(huì)遇到一些非常容易理解的問(wèn)題來(lái)適應(yīng)我們夜空的變化——有些人甚至預(yù)言了地面微波射電天文學(xué)的終結(jié)。

While the researchers' finding is tantalising, sadly we can't currently detect such black-hole-hosted planets. Nevertheless, this research could one day lead to an entire new way of discovering alien worlds - and they might be quite a sight to behold.

雖然研究人員的發(fā)現(xiàn)很誘人，但遺憾的是，我們目前還無(wú)法探測(cè)到這種黑洞行星。盡管如此，這項(xiàng)研究總有一天會(huì)帶來(lái)一種發(fā)現(xiàn)外星世界的全新方式——它們可能會(huì)成為一道亮麗的風(fēng)景線。

The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

這項(xiàng)研究發(fā)表在《天體物理學(xué)雜志》上。