Now that more than 7,000 Starlink satellites are orbiting our planet, scientists have been given a golden opportunity to study the effects the Sun's activity can have on their lifespans. As New Scientist reports, ferocious solar storms, caused by the Sun pelting our atmosphere with energized particles, can significantly reduce their lifetimes by prematurely pushing them to burn up during reentry to meet their ultimate fate. That's especially true as the Sun nears the most active part of its 11-year cycle, called the solar maximum. "We found that when we have geomagnetic storms, satellites re-enter faster than expected [without solar […]