HACKER Q&A
📣 saiya-jin

Just saw 40 satellites flying in straight line one after another


Hi, Can somebody please explain/point me to some tool that can explain what I saw today?

It was cca 17:20 CET local time, location is 49.054653, 20.212259, I was looking north with maybe 80° angle (so almost vertical but slightly towards north), and I've noticed a straight line of satellites, flying from west towards east. I could count at least 40 from the moment I've noticed them till the point a small cloud came and obscured that part of the sky. After it went away few minutes later, the show was over. No clue what was happening before I gazed randomly up and noticed it.

They were 100% satellites, uniform luminostity of all of them - cca like a faintly visible stars, they were spaced evenly in straight line and flew at same speeds(with some uniform gaps sometimes, so I saw exactly 1/2 were missing/non visible). Also the speed has been quite significant, a plane flying cca 11km above goes slower through the sky (there were few up there to compare).

In best case there were around 10 of them visible in the same time - a literal belt of lights moving across the sky, appearing on my left and disappearing on my right. It felt pretty surreal, like I've teleported 50 years into the future where this is common sight and sky is overcrowded.

Maybe some Starlink batch of satellites aligned before they disperse into their own orbits? Or did I miss something and this is pretty common these days?


  👤 thesuperbigfrog Accepted Answer ✓
Almost certainly Starlink.

We had some pass across our night sky a few weeks ago that looked exactly as you describe.

They were confirmed to be Starlink.

Starlink picture: https://earthsky.org/upl/2021/05/SPACEX-STARLINK-SATELLITES-...


👤 thisistheend123
Not in distant future our night skies would be perpetually filled with such lights, so much so that we will not be able to make out the stars and planets ..I am giving it 50 years ..

👤 jp42
https://findstarlink.com/ - in case anyone want to see them.

👤 simonblack
It's time we stopped cluttering up our skies with silly satellites like Starlink.

Unless they can be configured to be non-reflecting (very, very doubtful - but super-absorptive black paints are available) multiple satellite usage should be banned.