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Sustainable skies and the Earth–space environment

Nature Sustainability volume 7, pages 228–231 (2024)Cite this article

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The rapid launch of hundreds of thousands of satellites into low Earth orbit will significantly alter our view of the sky and raise concerns about the sustainability of Earth’s orbital space. A new framework for sustainable space development must balance technological advancement, protection of space environments and our capacity to explore the Universe.

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Fig. 1: Projections of space objects onto Earth.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Astronomical Union Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference, Paris, France

    A. Williams & R. Green

  2. European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany

    A. Williams

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    A. Boley

  4. Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy

    G. Rotola

  5. Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    R. Green

Authors
  1. A. Williams
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  2. A. Boley
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  3. G. Rotola
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  4. R. Green
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Contributions

A.W. led the author team, conceived the article framework, drafted parts of the manuscript and created Box 1. A.B. drafted parts of the manuscript and conducted the simulations to produce Fig. 1. G.R. and R.G. drafted parts of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to A. Williams, A. Boley, G. Rotola or R. Green.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Williams, A., Boley, A., Rotola, G. et al. Sustainable skies and the Earth–space environment. Nat Sustain 7, 228–231 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01308-8

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