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After half an hour’s windswept journey on foot and by boat through a craggy forested estuary to the school he attends in remote southern Chile, Diego Guerrero can finally access the Internet.

His school is located in the hamlet of Sotomo, around 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) south of the capital Santiago in the region of Los Lagos and inhabited by just 20 families.

A rain-drenched scattering of brightly painted wooden and tin houses, Sotomo stands out against a mist-swathed row of rocky outcrops jutting out into the Pacific Ocean. It can be accessed only by boat.

For decades, its inhabitants have survived by catching mussels and fish to sell at market, a five-hour round-trip away by boat.

starlink spacex internet chile school john f kennedy pablo sanhueza reuters starlink_spacex_internet_chile_school_john_f_kennedy_pablo_sanhueza_reuters

A father and son arrive at John F Kennedy School in the village of Sotomo, Chile
Photo Credit: Reuters/ Pablo Sanhueza

Now, it is one of two places in Chile to be chosen for a pilot project run by billionaire Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, to receive free Internet for a year.

Starlink, a division of SpaceX, aims to roll out 12,000 satellites as part of a low-Earth orbiting network to provide low-latency broadband Internet services around the world, with a particular focus on remote areas that terrestrial Internet infrastructure struggles to reach.

Since October, it has been offering a ‘Better Than Nothing Beta’ program to subscribers in the United States, while also running pilot trials in other countries. In Chile, a second antennae will be installed in Caleta Sierra, a small fishing port close to the arid northern deserts.

The plan is key to generating the funds that SpaceX needs to fund Musk’s dream of developing a new rocket capable of flying paying customers to the moon and eventually trying to colonize Mars.

For Diego, aged 7, stable Internet is a dream enough.

“I really like the Internet because we can do homework,” he said. “It’s faster so we can do more of it.”

Starlink did not reply to a Reuters request for comment. SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell said in a July statement about the Chilean pilot: “Starlink was designed for remote communities like those in Caleta Sierra and Sotomo. High-speed connectivity can have a transformational impact on these communities.”

Broadening Horizons

Diego’s favorite subject at school is math. He wants to be a sailor, and loves to go out on his father Carlos’s fishing boat.

Carlos, 40, has more ambitious plans for his son and hopes the window onto the world the new Internet connection will give him will broaden his horizons.

He takes Diego to school daily by boat, often battling wind and rain to get him there.

starlink spacex internet chile sotomo shop pablo sanhueza reuters starlink_spacex_internet_chile_sotomo_shop_pablo_sanhueza_reuters

A man stands in the doorway of one of only two stores in the village of Sotomo, Chile
Photo Credit: Reuters/ Pablo Sanhueza

“I didn’t have the option of going to school so you do it whatever the conditions, good or bad weather or pandemic, even if it’s difficult,” he said.

“If he has a good education, he has that option and is eager to do it, then you have all the hopes of any father, that maybe one day all the children from Sotomo can go on to professional jobs.”

Using tablets provided by the education ministry, the school’s seven pupils can now tap into online learning material, watch films, do virtual museum visits and try out video calls to children in other schools.

Their sole teacher at Sotomo’s John F Kennedy School, Javier de la Barra, said he also looked forward to using it for professional development.

The signal is received via a satellite dish installed on the school’s roof, which transmits through a Wi-Fi device to most of its facilities and outdoor patio. Eventually, the plan is to extend it to the rest of the hamlet.

It only works from noon to midnight, because of a constrained supply of diesel to the generator that supplies power to Sotomo.

Nonetheless, said de la Barra, it is a significant advance on the patchy mobile Internet signal that residents currently can get on their phones by leaning out of windows or paddling out into the bay.

The Starlink antennae was installed in July and inaugurated earlier this month in a ceremony attended by Transport and Telecommunications Minister Gloria Hutt.

She said she hoped Starlink would prove key in bridging Chile and the wider region’s digital divide – an issue laid bare with the advent of coronavirus lockdowns that left people without good Internet struggling to work or study.

Chile has among the highest Internet penetration rates on the continent, with 21 million mobile Internet connections among its population of 19 million as of March 2021, according to government figures.

But as the families in Sotomo can attest, having mobile Internet does not mean you can always get a signal.

“I love living here,” said Carlos Guerrero. “It’s tranquil, my family is without stress, but we do lack connectivity, roads, electricity and drinking water.

“What would be great is if all these services could be extended around our community, not just to a small part, so everyone could enjoy them.”

© Thomson Reuters 2021


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SpaceX Successfully Launches 23 Starlink Satellites on Brand-New Falcon 9 Rocket

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SpaceX Successfully Launches 23 Starlink Satellites on Brand-New Falcon 9 Rocket

SpaceX marked its 60th Falcon 9 flight of 2025 by successfully launching a brand-new Falcon 9 booster rocket on the 20th of May. This rocket carries 23 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into low Earth orbit. Among those, 13 feature Direct to Cell capabilities. Originally, it was targeting 11:58 p.m. EDT on May 19 (0358 UTC on May 20) for the launch, but that try was aborted just before liftoff, for reasons that the company did not immediately explain. It was finally launched on Tuesday (May 20) at 11:19 p.m. EDT (0319 GMT on May 21) from the Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

About the launch

According to SpaceX’s mission overview, this was the first-ever launch for this particular Falcon 9’s (booster B1095) first stage. While most recent SpaceX missions have reused Falcon 9 boosters , a signature part of the company’s cost-saving and sustainability strategy ,Tuesday’s flight featured a rare first-stage debut.

The rocket successfully completed its initial mission, separating from the upper stage around two and a half minutes after liftoff. About eight minutes later, the booster made a precise landing on the SpaceX drone ship “Just Read the Instructions,” stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. This smooth recovery sets the stage for future reusability of the rocket.

Technical Advancement

Of the 23 satellites onboard, 13 were outfitted with direct-to-cell technology — a feature designed to enable satellite connectivity directly to mobile phones, especially in areas lacking terrestrial infrastructure. After reaching space, the rocket’s second stage performed a short engine burn to circularize the orbit before deploying the satellites about 65 minutes after launch.

Starlink is the largest satellite megaconstellation ever constructed, consisting of about 7,500 operational satellites at the moment. And that number is growing all the time, as Tuesday’s action shows.

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Polaris Wasn’t Always the North Star: How Earth’s Wobble Shifts the Celestial Pole

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Polaris Wasn’t Always the North Star: How Earth’s Wobble Shifts the Celestial Pole

Polaris has been the constant guide for explorers and navigators in the northern hemisphere for thousands of years, hence its other name, the famous North Star. It is significant where it is located near the north rotational axis of Earth, and the whole sky appears to spin about it. But that’s not always been the case, and it won’t always be the case. The planet’s sluggish axial wobble, called precession, makes the pole trace a circle about every 26,000 years, bringing different stars into view over the ages.

How Earth’s 26,000-Year Axial Precession Shifts the North Star Over Time

As per NASA, gravitational forces from the sun and moon affect the rotation of Earth; these produce a bulge at the equator and axial precession. Every 26,000 years or so, this wobble makes a complete circle, and it makes the celestial pole move on a cycle, pointing to stars in sequence over time. Thuban, in the star constellation Draco, was the closest visible in the sky to the celestial pole some 4,700 years ago. The stars, such as Kochab and Pherkad, were the nearest to the pole about 3,000 years ago. Polaris now has the title, but not for very long.

The axis of the Earth will eventually change again, bringing new stars into prominence. In about 2,200 years, Errai in the constellation Cepheus will become the North Star. Alderamin, likewise in Cepheus, will have its turn some 5,000 years from now. Deneb, who will approach the pole once more about 9,800 CE, and Vega, a former pole star, returning in roughly 12,000 years, complete this cycle.
Many of these stars fit identifiable constellations, including Cepheus, Draco, and Ursa Minor. Modern stargazing apps incorporating augmented reality for nighttime sky navigation allow amateur astronomers to trace their positions.

As Polaris continues to shine overhead today, its reign is only temporary. Earth’s steady 26,000-year precessional cycle guarantees that other stars will eventually take its place, proving that even in the cosmos, change is constant.

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Scientists Warn of Inadequate Solar Storm Forecasting: What You Need to Know

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Scientists Warn of Inadequate Solar Storm Forecasting: What You Need to Know

Imagine being told a storm is approaching, but you won’t know how dangerous it truly is until minutes before impact. That’s the reality scientists face with solar storms. Although scientists have improved our ability to monitor coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from the Sun and project their arrival at Earth, the most important consideration — the orientation of the storm’s magnetic field — remains unknown until the very last minute. This direction, referred to as the Bz component, decides whether the CME will pass by with little influence or cause disturbances to satellites, electricity grids, and GPS systems.

Lack of Early Bz Data Leaves Earth Vulnerable to Solar Storms, Scientists Urge Wider Sun Coverage

As per a report on Space.com, solar physicist Valentín Martínez Pillet emphasised that knowing the Bz value earlier could dramatically improve our ability to prepare. Currently, spacecraft like NASA’s ACE and DSCOVR detect Bz only when the CME reaches Lagrange Point 1 (L1), giving us just 15 to 60 minutes’ warning. Martínez Pillet predicts it could take 50 years to achieve the forecasting precision we have for Earth’s weather unless we expand our view of the Sun with new satellites placed at Lagrange points L4, L5, and L3.

Despite having the scientific models needed, Martínez Pillet argues we lack vital real-time data from different solar perspectives. Most observations currently come from a single vantage point — L1, which limits our predictive ability. Missions like ESA’s upcoming Vigil, scheduled for launch in 2031 to L5, aim to fill this gap by detecting the CME’s shape and magnetic orientation from the side, potentially giving up to a week’s notice.

But decades may be too long to wait. History reminds us of the danger: the 1859 Carrington Event caused telegraph failures, and a near miss in 2012 could have caused trillions in damage if it had struck Earth. In a 2013 paper, Dan Baker of LASP warned that a direct hit would have left the modern world technologically crippled.

Today, tools like the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) and DSCOVR offer continuous solar monitoring, but their limitations emphasise the need to provide broader coverage. “The Sun isn’t changing,” Martínez Pillet said. “It’s our dependence on technology that’s made us more vulnerable.” Until we build the infrastructure to see solar storms before they hit, we may remain dangerously exposed.

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