New Delhi, July 2 -- patch the corrupted data, move on. "Until now we have managed," Hainaut said. "But it's getting worse."

On Wednesday, Hainaut published the first peer-reviewed attempt to define exactly how much worse it is allowed to get. The study, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics and released by ESO, sets a threshold of 100,000 faint satellites, roughly the number at which streaking losses from orbital traffic begin to match unavoidable background losses from equipment failures and atmospheric interference. The problem facing astronomers is not that this limit seems especially demanding. It is that the commercial satellite industry is planning 1.7 million more.

The current count stands at more than 14,000 active satellites in...