Andy Lawrence: Important and scary new paper on satellite megaconstellations: we may be creating a conductive band of plasma dust around the earth arxiv.org/abs/2312.09329

Important and scary new paper on satellite megaconstellations: we may be creating a conductive band of plasma dust around the earth arxiv.org/abs/2312.09329

I am trying to switch completely to bluesky, but I just tweeted this on X also.. multiple likes, reposts and comments within the hour .. here on bluesky, zilch

You have to tag things (especially like this) so they go to feeds… otherwise they will likely be lost to volume (I have no idea how this popped up for me but I’m glad it did… 9days later…)

Yes I understand this but need to get organised…

@danirabaiotti.bsky.social can you add Andy to the science feed? Proof of scientist here

Andrew Lawrence (astronomer) - Wikipediaen.m.wikipedia.org

Once you’re added (Dani will reply when it’s done, might take a few days), you can post to the Science feed with the test tube emoji.

For astro you do need to fill out a form:

Want to post to the Astronomy feed? Any astronomer (professional or non-professional/amateur/in training) can sign up to post here! See thread below ⬇️

And for the space stuff feed, just use the satellite emoji. No form needed!

Keep the faith, Andy! Learning curve here is steep for me but it feels like the best option to elevate social interaction.

Yeah there's no "algorithm" so it's all about genuine engagement. You'll need to follow and interact with people, not just post. Otherwise no one will see it.

Profile pictures can help too. It doesn’t need to be a photograph of yourself, but the default blue silhouette thing can decrease engagement as well. People associate it with bots and trolls

It may help to add a photo to your bio, some folks are more inclined to support accounts with avi or profile pic

Indeed. After building up a couple of thousand Twitter followers, then seeing it all turn toxic, I am finding it hard to raise the energy to do things properly on Bsky. But I should.

Yeah I had nearly 15k mutuals over there, then happily closed my X account as soon as I got settled here a few months ago If you follow back more folks to even out your ratio, & add a pic, people here will more likely choose to engage Give it a go. I think you’ll find bluesky worth the bother

Slow burners can be frustrating. Someone quote posted this 5 hours ago, and then someone *else* that I follow reposted the quote post. (Anecdata, if you like.)

Think sometimes the feed is a bit 🤔

Low earth orbit janitor is gonna be the hot new job of 2037

If you’re at all into manga, Planetes is based on that premise and really good

Planetes - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Rad, I have not heard of this. Tyvm 🙏🏻🖤

This sounds like the kind of thing the Enterprise crew would have to violate the Prime Directive to stop.

Wouldn't it be cool too have our own plasma ring?

Ah. Yes, lets just go with the flow!

For us laypeople, can you explain the impact of “perturbation of the magnetosphere?”

The magnetosphere protects us from incoming energetic charged particles, so we don't to mess with that; but mostly the paper is worried about changing the ionosphere, much closer to home

Is this bad?

So are we going to be ok? Is this a new serious risk or like a thing to look out for if you’re piloting a spaceship?

Reading the summary, the point appears to be that we don't know what it means but we really need to pay attention to it, study it, and figure it out, just in case it is bad.

yup thats about right

Post