Last week, space startup Rocket Lab managed to launch a rocket from a remote area of New Zealand, complete with three satellites on board. The country was elated, and Rocket Lab was receiving good publicity, until earlier this week.
Image courtesy: Rocket Lab
Just yesterday, the company admitted it launched another bit of payload on the same rocket in secret. Called Humanity Star, it’s basically the world’s biggest disco ball, sent to orbit our planet for the next nine months. But that news is not going down well with scientists.
The three-foot wide sphere is designed in such a way as to reflect quite a bit of light back to Earth in constant flashes from its rotating, faceted panels. It’s supposed to be bright enough to even see with the naked eye. Rocket Lab meant for it to be a symbol for humanity to strive together to resolve our issues. However, astrophysicists and astronomers are just calling it a nuisance.
That’s because all that reflected light is causing some serious light pollution. In city’s, this is the reason many people have trouble sleeping at night, because the street lights are so bright they’re confusing your body and messing with your sleep cycles. In the night sky, it means astronomers have to deal with a giant glinting ball of headaches as they search for and study stars.
Richard Easther from the University of Auckland told the Guardian, “This one instance won’t be a big deal but the idea of it becoming commonplace, especially at larger scales, would bring astronomers out into the street.” Others in the profession weren’t nearly as reserved with their comments.
“Most of us would not think it cute if I stuck a big flashing strobe-light on a polar bear, or emblazoned my company slogan across the perilous upper reaches of Everest,” Columbia University’s director of astrobiology Caleb Scharf wrote in Scientific American.
“Jamming a brilliantly glinting sphere into the heavens feels similarly abusive. It’s definitely a reminder of our fragile place in the universe, because it’s infesting the very thing that we urgently need to cherish.”