spacex starlink satellite over europe apr 19 2020
Deborah Byrd in HUMAN WORLD | SPACE | April 20, 2020
On April 19, 2020, many in western Europe were stunned to spot a line of satellites crossing the night sky. They were the SpaceX Starlinks satellites.
Deborah Byrd in HUMAN WORLD | SPACE | April 20, 2020
On April 19, 2020, many in western Europe were stunned to spot a line of satellites crossing the night sky. They were the SpaceX Starlinks satellites.
We woke up this morning to many email questions from EarthSky readers in Europe, who saw a line of lights last night (April 19, 2020), trailing each other across the sky. Some on Twitter compared them to a string of Christmas lights, although they were all one color, and they moved. Others weren’t so gentle in their descriptions, because, indeed, these were a SpaceX Starlink satellites, which some fear will ruin the night sky for astronomy. The satellites seen last night over Europe were part of a much-larger group of thousands of satellites that SpaceX has launched or will launch to low-Earth orbit, with the goal of providing global Internet access. For example, Chris Jones wrote to EarthSky:
Hi, you’re probably inundated with the same question this evening but, I watched approximately 30 ‘star like’ objects traveling at speed from a general west to east direction at around 21:50 GMT. They all seemed to be in-line following each other … Now I realize we are having the Lyrid meteor showers at present but didn’t expect them to be in such a uniform trajectory …
Right! The meteors would not look as these artificial satellites did; instead, meteors are bright streaks across the sky that typically appear one by one, or just a few at a time. The Starlink satellites, on the other hand, can be seen in a group – sometimes referred to as a “constellation” of satellites – all moving across the sky together.
The video above, by the way, was posted last night by ViralVideoLab. There’s not much of a description at VVL’s YouTube page, but the video itself appears to be the same one posted by the Daily Mail last night. Both videos show a SpaceX satellites, as you would see them in the night sky.
