Study quantifies satellite brightness, challenges ground-based astronomy

The ability to have access to the Internet or use a mobile phone anywhere in the world is taken more and more for granted, but the brightness of Internet and telecommunications satellites that enable global communications networks could pose problems for ground-based astronomy. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign aerospace engineer Siegfried Eggl coordinated an international study confirming recently deployed satellites are as bright as stars seen by the unaided eye.