Notions like “the best defence is offence” and a preemptive/preventive war have existed for a long time, to be fair. It’s just that this isn’t the first time Israel or the US have pulled that card and it never worked. Hezbollah was founded the first time Israel invaded Lebanon ffs.
Even if it did work in this case, it would be short-sighted, as the injustice in Palestine would continue and it’s just a matter of time before things blow up again. “No justice, no peace” and all that.
Apparent magnitude is a logarithmic scale, so 4.0 over 4.7 makes the Qianfan satellites 5x brighter than the 1st-gen Starlink satellites.
The researchers hope that by raising alarm early, they hope things can change for the better, like how SpaceX redesigned their satellites after public scrutiny. One of the mitigations is to just constantly point the shiny surface away from the surface. But it sucks that any legitimate and good-faith criticism gets hijacked by sinophobes.
The article actually spends the latter half talking about interference by Starlink and another American one, BlueBird, including in the radio wavelength. It’s really only the headline that’s problematic.
I wonder why these constellation satellites are always so bright. I never heard such things sabout other satellites, or is it just their large numbers that suddenly makes it a problem?