The Skyentists 26: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Satellite

In this episode of The Skyentists astronomers Kirsten Banks and Ángel López-Sánchez talk about artificial satellites: what are they, where are they, how many are there, what they usually do, and more. Of course, the reason of talking about satellites is discussing Space X Starlink satellite constellation, as plenty of conversations have happened in the last couple of weeks about how these objects might affect the view of the night sky for everybody and how they will affect to both amateur and professional astronomical observations.

To help us understand the impact of satellite constellations such as Starlink we are interviewing astrophysicist Kyler Khuen, deputy director of technology at Lowell Observatory (Arizona, USA), who has been intensively working on this lately. Many interesting points are raised, emphasising that proper and continue conversations between all stakeholders (private space companies, astronomers, national space agencies, government and lawmakers) are needed to minimise the impact of satellite constellations.

In Space News Ángel briefly presents a new research article that claims to have solved the problem of "the galaxy lacking dark matter".  

In "What's Up" we choose a very famous and bright galaxy: M 104, the Sombrero galaxy.

Kirsten Banks

Kirsten Banks is a proud Wiradjuri woman, astrophysicist and science communicator. She’s always had her eyes on the skies and loves to share her passion for space and astronomy. Kirsten jumps at almost every opportunity to share the wonders of the Universe with a wide range of people, from speaking to students at schools to sharing her love for space on national television programs such as ABC’s Q&A. In the years to come, Kirsten looks forward to completing a Ph.D. and becoming Dr. Kirsten Banks. 

Dr. Ángel López-Sánchez

Dr. Ángel López-Sánchez is an astronomer and science communicator at the Australian Astronomical Optics and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Macquarie University. He studies how the gas is converted into stars in nearby galaxies and how this affects galaxy evolution. He also provides support for visiting astronomers to the Anglo-Australian Telescope. He is a globally-recognised science communicator, with visibility in Spanish and Australian printed, broadcast, and social media (one of the Top-100 most-followed astrophysicists on Twitter). His stunning astronomy timelapse videos have received 1/4 million views on YouTube and have been used by ABC (Australia), BBC (UK), TVE (Spain) and in Science Museums worldwide. He is very active in social media, his Twitter feed is @El_Lobo_Rayado.

This podcast is syndicated with permissions.