Astronomers Say Giant Disco Ball in Space Is Bad for Science

This past Sunday, rocket startup Rocket Lab launched a three-foot-wide mirror ball into orbit. Called “Humanity Star,” it’s supposed to remind us that we’re all puny specks of dust living in the terrifying vastness of the Universe. Some astronomers have spoken out about the stunt, claiming the sparkly object will interfere with their work—one even compared the abusiveness of the act to sticking “a big flashing strobe-light on a polar bear.” That’s an overstatement, but the bigger problem is the precedent this otherwise useless satellite creates.It orbits below the International Space Station—which already produces a very bright trail across the night sky, if humanity needed something to ponder—and will likely fall out of that orbit and back to the Earth within a few weeks,” Barentine told Gizmodo. “The odds that it will produce a glint, seen by a research telescope with a hopelessly small field of view, are exceedingly small.”