An honest visualization to scale would just have the satellites being faint dust smaller than your pixels? Wouldn't be useful. But agreed that if you could zoom in and visualize the actual scale that'd be interesting and informative. Would be cool seeing the difference in satellite size. But would be less useful as a broader visualization of LEO.
“any accurate depiction of elevation would be indistinguishable from a flat map at that scale. The coast-to-coast measure of the US is a bit under 3000 miles, while the highest elevation in the continental US is a bit under 4½ miles above sea level, so in a 1000-pixel map, that would translate to a 1–2 pixel height for Mt Whitney which is the highest point in the contiguous United States.”
and also
“the difference in elevation between Everest and the Marianas Trench is less than the bulging of the earth from its rotation. And that amount is less than you might guess. If we scale the earth down to a diameter of one foot (which would be bigger than my childhood globe), the bulge would be 0.04in or roughly 1mm. Good luck distinguishing your oblate spheroid from a sphere with those numbers.”
Yes and to be clear on what "practical" means here. If there's a mountain between origin-destination for a road trip it's relevant to highlight it. In the case of orbits the objects may be small but they're very fast and very dangerous.
I think calling them dangerous is even a bit misleading as they're well tracked. Some of them even autonomously precisely position themselves rather than be on ballistic trajectory.
For those who don't know, Leo Labs operates a commercial version of NORAD radar sites that track satellites and debris.
If you're a satellite operator looking to avoid conjunctions, then buying additional measurements helps reduce uncertainty (which is often needed in order to decide if you should conduct a maneuver).
Nice to see United Kingdom using a predictable trajectory. Dismayed by so many other nations just crapping all over the planet without consideration though. The lack of foresight is frustrating.
They're not really crapping all over. Orbits at different altitudes rotate around the planet from precession so any satellites spread out randomly over time.
If you're looking for something real-time, I'd recommend checking out NASA's "Eyes on the Solar System" visualizer (not as comprehensive but still pretty cool):
If anyone is curious, as I was, about the large red shapes on the map, those are the beams of the object tracking/measurement sites. They correlate with the maps at [0]. I was actually pretty blown away when I started reading that page. Apparently those stations can measure <10cm-sized debrisin orbit. What?! Amazing.
Starlink satellites are in low enough orbit to decay on very short timescales. More worrisome are Russian satellites in high / very long lived orbits that tend to spontaneously explode.
It may comfort you to hear that the Starlink satellites are tiny in comparison to the vastness of their orbit – the visualization makes them appear larger than they are, so you can see them clearly – and that they’re low enough that they’ll naturally de-orbit and burn up in the atmosphere after about 15 years even without using their maneuvering thrusters.
They’re providing worldwide rural broadband, and according to the FAA they’re doing so in a way that’s careful and responsible about space debris and collision avoidance. Is disgust truly warranted in this case?
That's not true. Starlink was developed for its stated purpose. It's a conspiracy pushed by Russian plants that it's for missile defense. A lot of information on that wiki page is made up. Like the constant talk of griffin.
Objects not to scale. Not even close, and no mention of it (that I saw).
Graphing scale honestly is extremely important. A lot of people are convinced our sky is full of satellites because of visualizations like this.
An honest visualization to scale would just have the satellites being faint dust smaller than your pixels? Wouldn't be useful. But agreed that if you could zoom in and visualize the actual scale that'd be interesting and informative. Would be cool seeing the difference in satellite size. But would be less useful as a broader visualization of LEO.
Proper scale makes the visualization impractical. I wrote about this with respect to a US map showing mountains on my mailing list: https://dahosek.substack.com/p/one-million-stories
“any accurate depiction of elevation would be indistinguishable from a flat map at that scale. The coast-to-coast measure of the US is a bit under 3000 miles, while the highest elevation in the continental US is a bit under 4½ miles above sea level, so in a 1000-pixel map, that would translate to a 1–2 pixel height for Mt Whitney which is the highest point in the contiguous United States.”
and also
“the difference in elevation between Everest and the Marianas Trench is less than the bulging of the earth from its rotation. And that amount is less than you might guess. If we scale the earth down to a diameter of one foot (which would be bigger than my childhood globe), the bulge would be 0.04in or roughly 1mm. Good luck distinguishing your oblate spheroid from a sphere with those numbers.”
Yes and to be clear on what "practical" means here. If there's a mountain between origin-destination for a road trip it's relevant to highlight it. In the case of orbits the objects may be small but they're very fast and very dangerous.
I think calling them dangerous is even a bit misleading as they're well tracked. Some of them even autonomously precisely position themselves rather than be on ballistic trajectory.
For those who don't know, Leo Labs operates a commercial version of NORAD radar sites that track satellites and debris.
If you're a satellite operator looking to avoid conjunctions, then buying additional measurements helps reduce uncertainty (which is often needed in order to decide if you should conduct a maneuver).
Nice to see United Kingdom using a predictable trajectory. Dismayed by so many other nations just crapping all over the planet without consideration though. The lack of foresight is frustrating.
It's just because a very significant amount of UK satellites are OneWeb Internet satellites.
They're not really crapping all over. Orbits at different altitudes rotate around the planet from precession so any satellites spread out randomly over time.
This is great! Is there a way to set the visualization to the present moment and real-time?
If you're looking for something real-time, I'd recommend checking out NASA's "Eyes on the Solar System" visualizer (not as comprehensive but still pretty cool):
https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/earth
Set speed to "1" for realtime (I assume)
Any visualization representing real time and the present moment would be inaccurate. Tracking data can sometimes be several days old.
If anyone is curious, as I was, about the large red shapes on the map, those are the beams of the object tracking/measurement sites. They correlate with the maps at [0]. I was actually pretty blown away when I started reading that page. Apparently those stations can measure <10cm-sized debrisin orbit. What?! Amazing.
[0] https://leolabs.space/radars/
Nice find! This is impressively... disgusting. A lot of that crap is Starlink.
What are the red zones?
Starlink satellites are in low enough orbit to decay on very short timescales. More worrisome are Russian satellites in high / very long lived orbits that tend to spontaneously explode.
Is "spontaneously explode" supposed to be a joke about how Russia will use them as bombs, or are they actually poorly designed?
They actually explode.
https://spacenews.com/low-intensity-explosion-caused-russian...
To be fair the article also said it could have been a collision, even if it isn't super likely.
It may comfort you to hear that the Starlink satellites are tiny in comparison to the vastness of their orbit – the visualization makes them appear larger than they are, so you can see them clearly – and that they’re low enough that they’ll naturally de-orbit and burn up in the atmosphere after about 15 years even without using their maneuvering thrusters.
They’re providing worldwide rural broadband, and according to the FAA they’re doing so in a way that’s careful and responsible about space debris and collision avoidance. Is disgust truly warranted in this case?
Red zones are “instruments” which isn’t defined, but is apparently surface-based observatories.
Stuff like Space Fence.
Well and Starlink was actually developed with an eye towards Golden Dome (missile defense) more than commercial internet, we now know..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_s...
So much more debris coming...
That's not true. Starlink was developed for its stated purpose. It's a conspiracy pushed by Russian plants that it's for missile defense. A lot of information on that wiki page is made up. Like the constant talk of griffin.