“The potentially long-term environmental harms of deploying tens of thousands of satellites are still unclear.” No Brakes Over one hundred astronomers have signed an open letter urging the US Federal Communications Commission to pause all Starlink and other mega-constellation launches, fearing their environmental impact and the obstruction they pose to ground-based observatories trying to image deep space. The pause should be held until scientists can fully assess the risks of deploying expendable satellites at such a scale, the astronomers argue, criticizing the FCC for excluding mega-constellations from being subject to environmental review. “Artificial satellites, even those invisible to the naked eye, can obstruct astronomical observations that help detect asteroids and understand our place in the universe,” Robert McMillan, an astronomer at the University of Arizona and one of the letter’s authors, told Space.com. “The potentially long-term environmental harms of deploying tens of thousands of satellites,” he continued, “are still unclear.” Satel-Lights There are currently over 9,000 active satellites in orbit. SpaceX’s Starlink constellations account for more than half of that number, with around 6,500 functional spacecraft …