Sara Pritchard

Professor

Sara Pritchard, professor of science and technology studies at Cornell University, is the author of the forthcoming book, Transforming Night: The History and Science of Light Pollution.

Pritchard says:

“More satellites were deployed between 2019 and mid-2024 than in the previous sixty years combined. Over 15,000 active satellites are currently orbiting Earth of which two-thirds are Starlink satellites.

“Ground-based artificial light since the late nineteenth century had already altered the night sky. Space-based light is now extending the geography of nocturnal artificial illumination into extraterrestrial territory. Satellites will transform night across almost the entire planet, unless such illumination is addressed – and quickly. Transformations of night due to both ground-and space-based anthropogenic light are momentous in the context of human history, given all cultures’ connections with the night and nightscapes.”