According to New Scientist, new research led by NASA’s Alejandro Borlaff warns that planned satellite launches could ruin one in every three images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The study, which simulated the impact of proposed mega-constellations, found that if all 560,000 satellites filed with the FCC and International Telecommunication Union launch by the end of the 2030s, Hubble could see an average of two satellite trails per image. For China’s upcoming Xuntian telescope, with its wider field of view, that number could jump to a staggering 90 trails per photo. The team validated their model by correctly predicting that 4% of current Hubble images are already affected, a figure that matches real-world analysis. However, experts like John Barentine of Dark Sky Consulting caution that the actual number of satellites in orbit by the 2030s will likely stabilize around 50,000 to 100,000, which would lessen the impact.
Space is no longer pristine
Here’s the thing that really hits home from this report. Astronomers have always thought of space as the ultimate clean room for observations. No atmosphere to blur the view, no city lights to wash out the stars. It was a sanctuary. But now, as Borlaff put it, we’re actively polluting that environment. And we’re doing it at a mind-boggling pace—over 75% of the nearly 14,000 satellites up there were launched in just the last five years. This isn’t a distant future problem. It’s happening now, and the projections are just wild. We’re talking about moving from thousands of objects to potentially hundreds of thousands. That fundamentally changes the orbital landscape forever.
Not just a ground problem
For years, the conversation has been about streaks ruining the long exposures of giant Earth-based telescopes. That’s bad enough. But this study shifts the goalposts entirely. It shows that even our eyes in the sky aren’t safe. The simulations looked at Hubble, the soon-to-launch Chinese Xuntian space telescope, the future ARRAKHIS dark matter scope, and the recently launched SPHEREx galaxy surveyor. Basically, it covers the whole gamut of space-based science. The impact varies based on a telescope’s orbit and field of view, but the conclusion is universal: no space telescope’s data is immune. This adds a whole new layer of cost and complexity—now mission planners might have to budget for extensive data cleaning or even avoid certain parts of the sky altogether.
Do we really need half a million satellites?
That’s the multi-billion dollar question, isn’t it? The 560,000 figure comes from regulatory filings, which are essentially wish lists or placeholders from companies securing spectrum and orbital slots. It’s in their interest to file for more than they’ll ever build. Barentine’s point is crucial: the real operational number will probably be an order of magnitude lower. But even 50,000 to 100,000 satellites is a tenfold increase from today. And who’s to say the filings stop here? If the business case for global broadband and Earth observation holds, what’s the ceiling? There’s a massive disconnect between the breakneck speed of commercial space and the glacial pace of international space law. We’re building the infrastructure first and asking the regulatory questions later, if at all.
What’s the fix?
So, what can be done? Mitigation on the ground (or in orbit) is one path—developing better software to identify and subtract satellite trails from images. But that’s a band-aid. It doesn’t recover lost data or observation time, and it adds processing overhead. The real solution requires proactive measures from the satellite operators themselves, like using darker materials for satellites (which companies like SpaceX are experimenting with for Starlink) and ensuring responsible deorbiting plans. It also requires regulators like the FCC to seriously weigh astronomical impact alongside communication needs. This research, led by Alejandro Borlaff and commented on by experts like John Barentine, provides the hard numbers needed for that conversation. You can dive into the full study in Nature. The bottom line? We’re at a crossroads. The age of pristine space-based astronomy might be closing, and the window to protect it is narrow.
