Stark applied the new tool, based on the image analysis technique known as the Radon Transform, to identify satellite trails across Hubble's camera with the widest field of view, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). So we think it will be better for identifying and removing satellite trails in Hubble images," said Dave Stark of STScI.
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"We developed a new tool to identify satellite trails that is an improvement over the previous satellite software because it is much more sensitive. As many as 8,000 satellites circle Earth – more than half for telecommunications.īut not to worry - experts say that they are not a threat to the celebrated telescope's ongoing observations of the universe. Hubble is in a low-Earth orbit and so many satellites in higher orbits sweep overhead. To date not one Hubble science program has been affected by satellite trails.Īrtificial satellites are photobombing the Hubble Space Telescope's snapshots as much as every two to four hours, according to researchers at Baltimore's Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).Īs they whirl around Earth, the satellites leave streaks across an image, like scratches on photographic film.
But even as the number of satellites increases, the Space Telescope Science Institute's tools for cleaning the Hubble pictures will still be useful. It's estimated that by 2030 there could be ten times as many satellites circling Earth as there are now. And so, artifacts can be identified and subtracted between exposures because they are not in the same place on a detector. Hubble observations consist of more than just one exposure. In fact, they are a bigger nuisance than satellite trails.Īstronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland have developed tools for cleaning up this clutter.
These leave what looks like "scratch marks" too. Cosmic rays rain onto Hubble's camera detectors. And, they are not the only image artifacts Hubble astronomers have to contend with. Nevertheless, these denizens leave annoying pencil-thin, white streaks across a Hubble image as they zoom overhead. But a typical satellite trail is very thin and will affect less than 0.5% of a single Hubble exposure. For Hubble this means that satellites photobomb about 10% of its exposures on celestial targets. But by 2023, the rising number has grown almost exponentially to nearly 8,000 satellites. When the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990, there were about 470 artificial satellites orbiting Earth.
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