As tech giants and aerospace startups race to launch space-based data centers, scientists are warning that hundreds of thousands of new satellites could transform Earth into a ringed planet, drastically escalating light pollution and disrupting the night sky.The warning comes as companies including SpaceX, Blue Origin, and startups such as Starcloud and Cowboy Space propose plans that could collectively send up to 1.2 million satellites into orbit. The projected figure dwarfs the roughly 16,000 active satellites currently orbiting Earth by more than 75 times, raising severe concerns regarding space debris, orbital congestion, collision risks, and optical interference for ground-based astronomy.However, scientists point out that to continuously harvest solar energy, these orbiting data centers must occupy specific “sun-synchronous” orbits along the polar terminator—the moving line that divides day and night on Earth. Do you think that the tech giants mushrooming data centers need regulation?
