Satellite glints grow in night skies

TOKYO -- A sharp increase in constellations of low-altitude satellites is transforming the night sky. Used mostly to facilitate high-speed communications, the satellites may soon account for 10% of the nighttime glow in the skies of Japan, South Korea and part of China, raising concerns about their interference with astronomical observations.

Samantha Lawler, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Regina in Canada, said telescopes cannot avoid the effects of satellite glints, which often wash out starlight. She has been studying the history of the solar system through the observations of a region of small bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. Satellites shine the brightest when they are outside the Earth's shadow during twilight at dawn or dusk and receive sunlight directly.