Tuesday, May 5th, a mysterious blob moved across the evening sky over Prince George Lheidli T’enneh, blurry to look at, like some kind of… space ghost. Piercing this interstellar oddity for CFURadio is Malhar Kendurkar, President of the Prince George Astronomical Society. For an astronomer, this is a familiar sight related to space exploration, colloquially known as a “Space Jellyfish.” Its visibility is unusual, but the activity surrounding it is not.
Kendurkar explains it is representative of, “how polluted our night sky actually has become over the years, and the more satellites we launch, the more debris there will be in our low earth orbit.” Over time this could lead to the Kessler Syndrome, where there is so much space junk we can’t get into our orbit without hitting debris.The society encourages various space agencies to cover satellites in dark, light-absorbent, colours before they launch but advocacy efforts are limited. Regardless of the origin, eyes looking up at the night sky may observe stirring light and note what Kendurkar reminds us, “it’s still fascinating and it’s still extremely active, and it always will be active.”