Time is up for the disco ball in space. In January, US space flight startup Rocket Lab launched a big shiny orb dubbed the “Humanity Star” into orbit. Now, seven months earlier than planned, it came crashing down.
Unlike most other satellites, it had no scientific or civil purpose. Instead, , “The Humanity Star was designed to be a temporary symbol in the night sky that encouraged everyone to look up [and] ponder humanity’s place in the universe.”
Some viewed it less favourably. At the time of its launch, California Institute of Technology professor Mike Brown that it was “intentionally bright long-term space graffiti.” Other astronomers worried that it could hurtle through the field of view of telescopes, ruining their images of stars or other natural cosmic objects.
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The satellite was a spinning geodesic sphere about a metre across, made of 76 panels of reflective carbon fibre. Its panels reflected sunlight back at Earth’s surface, resulting in bright glints of light in the night sky as it orbited the planet. While in orbit, it circled our planet once every 90 minutes.
But its orbit has been decaying. The atmosphere in low Earth orbit is less dense than at the surface, but it’s enough to drag on the satellite and slow it down.
Upon its launch, Rocket Lab predicted that the Humanity Star would be in orbit for nine months, but it appears that they underestimated how much drag the hollow sphere would experience. It fell back toward Earth’s surface on 22 March. As it fells, it burned up in the atmosphere.
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