A new Nasa-led study has revealed a growing challenge for space observatories: contamination of their images due to light reflected and emitted by the rapidly increasing number of satellites in low-Earth orbit.

This issue, once limited to ground-based telescopes, is now affecting advanced space telescopes and could impact a large percentage of their images in the coming decade.

The study examined four major space telescopes, two operational and two planned. Researchers found that about 40% of images from Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope and nearly 96% from the upcoming SPHEREx observatory may be tainted by satellite light.

The projected contamination rates are similarly high for the European Space Agency's ARRAKIHS mission and China's planned Xuntian telescope.

The surge in satellites i

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