The growing number of satellites in orbit could soon make telescopes obsolete. 'For astronomy, this would obviously be catastrophic'

Bright streaks of light crisscross through a night sky.

If the number of satellites in Earth's orbit exceeds 100,000, humanity may lose its ability to study the universe from the planet's surface.

That's the conclusion of a study conducted by astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) which warns that if existing plans to deploy a million orbiting data centers and tens of thousands sun-reflecting mirrors were to come to fruition, the world's most cutting-edge astronomical telescopes may as well be mothballed.