theSIGNAL SCIENCE
26 October 2026
"Whoever controls the information controls the rules everyone else must follow."
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Science

Who Directs Traffic When the Road Is Orbit?

The Pentagon has given SpaceX its sharpest collision-warning data, and critics ask whether one company is becoming the referee of space.

Fifty thousand. That is how many times a day two objects in orbit pass close enough to worry someone. Each near-miss is called a conjunction, and somebody has to watch them all. For years, that somebody was a small US government program.

Now the Pentagon has given SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket company, access to its most precise collision data. Why does it matter? Picture a city where one trucking firm is handed control of every traffic light. That is the image used by Cole Donovan, a former employee of the program, known as Traccs, who now works for the non-profit Stand Up for Science.

The company, he warns, could switch the lights to red whenever a rival's turn comes. The Space Force says it is simply exchanging data with several companies where this benefits the government. SpaceX acknowledged the deal but did not answer the Guardian's questions. The timing raises eyebrows.

Photo: NASA / Unsplash
Thousands of satellites and pieces of debris circle Earth, each one a potential collision risk.
Discuss
  • Is it acceptable for a private company to hold privileged government data that its direct competitors cannot access?
  • What does the trucking-company-and-traffic-lights comparison make clear, and what might it oversimplify about space traffic control?
  • How could governments avoid 'vendor lock' while still using the most advanced technology that private firms provide?
Science

A Moon Bigger Than Jupiter?

Meet the possible first moon beyond our Solar System, and it breaks every rule. Using Chile's Very Large Telescope, Kevin Hoy and colleagues spotted a body at least as massive as Jupiter circling a brown dwarf, itself orbiting the young star CD-35 2722. Is it a planet or a moon? The team calls it an "exosatellite", admitting our familiar words may simply fail here.…
  • If a Jupiter-sized object orbits a brown dwarf, should we call it moon or planet?
∞
It's like giving a trucking company control of all the traffic lights, which they can switch to red whenever it's their competition's turn to go.
Cole Donovan, former Traccs employee at Stand Up for Science
Science

A Universe Rebuilt Inside a Supercomputer

What if you could rewind the cosmos and watch it grow up? Astronomers at Harvard and the Smithsonian have tried. Their simulation, Lumina, follows dark matter, gas and radiation through the universe's first two billion years. The goal is a test. If the James Webb Space Telescope sees what Lumina predicts, today's physics holds. If not, a theory may need rewriting.…
  • Would you rather simulations confirm our theories of the universe, or break them?
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theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
1VOCABULARY
conjunctionnear-miss
vendor lockraises eyebrowsstakes are huge
refereeexosatellite
2GRAMMAR FOCUS
Dependent prepositions — verb/adjective + preposition patterns
Many verbs and adjectives are followed by a fixed preposition, and the wrong choice sounds unnatural (e.g. we depend ON something, not 'depend of' it). These patterns must be learned as chunks, and a verb after the preposition takes the -ing form.
on · to · of · for · with · about · in · from
  1. Cole Donovan, a former employee of Traccs, warns the danger of one company controlling orbital traffic data.
  2. Some analysts fear that the government could become too dependent a single brilliant supplier.
  3. The Space Force says it is happy to share information several companies, not just SpaceX.
  4. SpaceX acknowledged the deal but did not respond the Guardian's questions.
  5. Critics are suspicious the timing of the deal, given the recent staff cuts at Traccs.
  6. A Starlink satellite, an Indian weather probe and a European telescope all belong the same crowded region of orbit.
3COLLOCATIONS
Match the verb on the left with the noun phrase it best collocates with on the right.
  1. raise
  2. rewrite
  3. hand over
  4. walk away from
  5. break
4CRITICAL THINKING
Both the Lumina simulation and the exosatellite discovery show scientists testing what they know against evidence that may not fit. Think about how scientific institutions should respond when a finding challenges the vocabulary or categories they rely on. Who should decide when a long-standing definition needs to change, and what is lost or gained by changing it?
5CREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the top story in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
6WRITING
Imagine you are an astronomer who has just spotted something in the sky that no existing word describes. Write a short paragraph explaining what you saw, what name you would give it, and why you chose that name.
7DEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong.
  • worrying→→
  • crowded→→
  • surprising→→
  • big→→
  • unusual→→
  • concerned→→
8SPEAKING
  1. Which would worry you more: a satellite collision or a data monopoly? Why?
  2. Should space exploration be funded by taxpayers, or left to private investors?
  3. What discovery about space would change your daily life the most?
  4. Is humanity ready to share orbit with thousands more satellites? Explain your view.