In 2026, astronomer Samantha Lawler and two colleagues modelled SpaceX’s proposal for one million orbital AI data-centre satellites and found that, if they are launched with the assumed sizes and reflectivity, naked-eye satellites could outnumber visible stars for large portions of the night and year almost everywhere on Earth.
A million satellites is difficult to picture as an orbital system. Aaron Boley, Samantha Lawler and Hanno Rein…
