About Our Guest

Prof. Samantha Lawler is an astronomer at the University of Regina who studies the Kuiper Belt — icy bodies beyond Neptune — to understand how the solar system formed. She lives on a farm outside Regina under dark Saskatchewan skies and has emerged as one of Canada's leading voices on satellite light pollution. She has an asteroid named after her.

What This Episode Is About

There are now more than 10,000 Starlink satellites in orbit. One company — owned by one billionaire — controls two-thirds of all satellites in space, and the number is still climbing. Proposals are on file for AI data centres and giant reflective mirrors in orbit. One request alone asks for a million satellites. In this conversation, Prof. Lawler explains what this actually means: a night sky that is measurabl ...