Eerie chain of lights in the night sky over Switzerland
Starlink satellites can sometimes appear as chains of tiny streaks in the sky, as seen in this NASA photo taken from the International Space Station. Photo courtesy of NASA
A star-studded night sky over Vetroz, Switzerland was punctuated by an eerie string of lights last weekend – but a skywatcher waited outside for the lights to appear.
“That’s it,” the man said while filming what appeared to be a series of stars gliding across the sky.
To the untrained eye, the lights could spark rumors of UFOs, but not to people who were expecting them. In fact, last Saturday’s parade of lights appeared right on schedule.
A platoon of SpaceX Starlink satellites flies over the Swiss Alps on February 26. Image by Newsflare |
The lights weren’t from a UFO, but from dozens of new SpaceX Starlink satellites launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Southern California a week ago.
The formations are called satellite trains because the objects follow each other in quick succession. In cases like Switzerland the train can be tightly packed, in other cases they can be further apart.
The Starlink satellites do not emit light but reflect light from the sun. This is most pronounced in the hours just after dark or just before dawn.
SpaceX has launched over 2,000 Starlink satellites in recent years and plans to launch thousands more. The last launch was on Thursday. The private space company made headlines last month after 40 of the satellites were destroyed in a solar storm.
Thousands of satellites are required for SpaceX to achieve its goal of providing high-speed internet access around the world. It could be a game changer for remote areas where internet access is extremely limited or unavailable.
However, the fleet of internet-providing satellites is not without a hitch.
Thousands of satellites constantly orbiting the Earth can disrupt astronomers’ observations of the night sky and contribute to the growing problem of satellites and debris in low-Earth orbit.
SpaceX has been working to make the satellites less reflective, but when conditions are right, like over Switzerland, the satellites can easily be seen with the naked eye.
“I wasn’t sure if this one would be visible, but it is,” the man said of the satellite train while recording the video.
The satellites appear to appear brightest in the sky in the days immediately following launch, before becoming “invisible to the naked eye within a week of launch,” according to SpaceX.
SpaceX plans at least two more launches from Starlink in March, with more to come throughout 2022.
In order to see a train from Starlink satellites like the video from Switzerland, observers need clear weather to keep an eye on the sky on the nights after launch.