Sorry that was depressing and everything is already terrible. I would normally post a photo of my goats, but they are far far away right now.
So, here are some very happy goats in Victoria we found yesterday, happily eating Christmas trees.
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And they're being lowered in orbit, to somehow give more room around them. Quite how escapes me.
@sundogplanets I just wanted to say that I appreciate all the work you put into this. Your web sites, simulations, and data are really fascinating.
Every once in a while I'm in a casual, smalltalk conversation with someone and Starlink or Kuiper or whatever (like "AI... in spaaaace....") comes up. My contribution to that conversation usually includes something informed by what I read from you. 1446 reentries! Jeez.
@paco Thank you for this note!
How long until we begin plans to down them one by one? It's not like they have any legal status when they're over my home.
@sundogplanets great flying fuckballs is my new favorite swear.
@sundogplanets
"great flying fuckballs" tho 😍
@sundogplanets what do we know about the burned particles behavior in the upper athmospere? Does it react similar to volcano ashes? Or are there special effects we do not understand right now?
@sundogplanets boy, you'd have thought we would have learned from the whole "dumping shit in the ocean" practice that maybe dumping crap in the upper atmosphere willy nilly isn't a good idea.
@thehomespundays @sundogplanets The polluters never thought dumping things anywhere was a bad idea, as long as they can get away with it.
@sundogplanets Shades of Wall-e
@sundogplanets Starlink's debris problem is unsustainable. Cleaner satellite designs needed.
There’s a Starlink waiting in the sky
It’d like to come and meet you so just wait and it will try 😬
@sundogplanets also, “great flying fuckballs” is a magnificent phrasing 😆
@sundogplanets how these numbers compare to expectations of satellite reentering, if any estimations have been made ? Thanks
@sundogplanets As long as they burn up in the atmosphere.
I was reading yesterday that many Starlink satellites will be changing to lower orbits as space weather improves.
Apart from improving performances this will bring them below the more common debris orbits and allow them to deorbit with less difficulty 😕🤷♂️
@sundogplanets with the proposed reconfiguration- is there any discernible difference? My first thought is that there is physically less space between spacecraft at a lower radius, so the collision risk reduction could be a wash anyway?
@onyxraven @sundogplanets at lower altitudes a collision wouldn't even matter with how fast the orbits will decay.
@Rin3d @onyxraven Oh yeah, no big deal to destroy a whole bunch of satellites at that orbital altitude. Wouldn't matter at all. (Why do you think this?)
Alzheimers for everyone! (maybe)
@sundogplanets /s because who cares about sustainability?
Other megaconstellations are starting to catch up a bit now. Which is why the CRASH Clock (our team's measure of how long it would take for a collision if all satellite maneuvers suddenly stopped) is so ridiculously short: 5 days in our updated calculation
OneWeb has 654 up out of 7,000 planned
Kuiper has 180 out of 3,000 planned
Xingwang has 160 out of 1,000 planned
Satellite numbers from https://planet4589.org/space/con/conlist.html
@sundogplanets do you have a rough estimate how the calculation will change with the planned satellites being in orbit?
@sundogplanets
Isn‘t Fuckballs planning to lower the orbit of whole constellations because they already have collision issues and thus made their original orbit too debreed?
@sundogplanets how long for a collision if only all of starlink were to stop? Not that I'm expecting the space z CEO to shut everything down in a temper tantrum or anything.
@sundogplanets I was excited when I recognised your name on "An Orbital House of Cards: Frequent Megaconstellation Close Conjunctions" (hey, I follow that person on Mastodon!) and then was immediately saddened by what it was saying.
Thanks to you and your team for your effort, attention, and passion.
@sundogplanets I assume they are occupying different orbits ( different altitudes)? If the FCC had focused on fiber buildouts rather than letting the cell providers make bullshit claims about coverage we wouldn’t be in this situation.
@CavedaleRhones The first plot in my team's recent paper shows what's at different altitudes: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.09643
And yeah, totally agree with you about the FCC...
@sundogplanets I assume they are occupying different orbits ( different altitudes)? If the FCC had focused on fiber buildouts rather than letting the cell providers make bullshit claims about coverage we wouldn’t be in this situation.
Sorry that was depressing and everything is already terrible. I would normally post a photo of my goats, but they are far far away right now.
So, here are some very happy goats in Victoria we found yesterday, happily eating Christmas trees.
@sundogplanets OMG the petting zoo at Beacon Hill Park. I make sure to visit every time I'm up there. They have a goat stampede to put the goats away when they close for the evening and it's adorable.
If you have time you should head out to My Chosen Cafe in #Metchosin, just West of #VictoriaBC . You can have some great pizza while admiring the goats and the disco chickens!
@sundogplanets that last sentence was one I didn't know I needed to see today.
@sundogplanets I hope you were lucky enough to see the afternoon goat run!
@harmoniousanger No, the petting zoo is closed at this time of year! Glad I could say hi through the fence though.
@sundogplanets This is so discouraging.
@CStamp @sundogplanets Not only that, scary! House insurance will have to create a new category for satellite debris falling on your house, or worse, human injury. Shouldn't there be some sort of bureau controling this stuff?
@mcourcel @sundogplanets One might think. The tech bros are being given free rein to damage our atmosphere, ruin the night sky, and create real physical threat. I imagine that if one does strike a person or property, there will be a sizeable law suit.
@sundogplanets @CStamp @mcourcel
Well, if a Starlink sat hits our house then I simply try to get money from ... <checks notes> the US government.
Good luck
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@mcourcel @CStamp There's a book about this ("Who owns outer space?") freely available here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/who-owns-outer-space/960CCB0464744F845B09434D932699EC