Space

In the beginning, the Bible tells us,

God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night.

And so it has been ever since — until now.

Here in the 21st century, we humans are on the cusp of turning night into day — and bidding good night to the stars that have guided us home for thousands of years.

Two little-noted applications under review by the Federal Communications Commission would, if fully implemented, fundamentally remake the night sky. But the FCC, the satellite regulator, appears to have fast-tracked approval without much of a pause to weigh the benefits of these proposals against the harms they could cause to life on the planet.

A start-up called Reflect Orbital proposes to use large, mirrored satellites to redirect sunlight to Earth at night, with plans to bathe solar farms, industrial sites and even entire cities in light that could, if desired, reach the intensity of daylight. At the same time, Elon Musk’s SpaceX wants to launch as many as a million satellites to serve as orbiting data centers — 70 times the number of satellites now in orbit. We could have a million points of light streaking across our skies at night.