On Tuesday night, a bright trail of lights was spotted over the sky in Trinidad and Tobago – with many taking to social media thinking they saw UFOs.
The reality, while still a spectacle, is more man-made. They were Starlink satellites launched by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. The satellite constellation was also spotted from Barbados, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
As of February 2023, Starlink consists of over 3,580 mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), which communicate with designated ground transceivers. Nearly 12,000 satellites are planned to be deployed, with a possible later extension to 42,000, all in orbits at around 550 kilometers.
While these satellites are scattered across the globe, occasionally, we see groups of 50 or so satellites trailing each other.
Though these SpaceX Starlink satellites aren’t large, they’re quite reflective and catch the sunlight, which is why they are illuminated across the night sky. Aiding their visibility, they’re also located in low orbit.
After many complaints from astronomers, the company outlined for astronomers its goals in reducing the brightness of the satellites. While Starlink satellites are visible to the naked eye while in orbit, SpaceX said its first goal is for the spacecraft to be “generally invisible to the naked eye within a week of launch,” as well as “for almost all phases of their mission.” Its second goal is to minimize Starlink’s impact on astronomy “by darkening satellites, so they do not saturate observatory detectors.”
For those unchanged, brighter satellites that still orbit the Earth, if you ever see a uniform line of lights moving through the atmosphere, pull up FindStarlink before deciding it is a UFO. In fact, you might be able to see another pass of a Starlink constellation this evening at 6:47 PM, looking from the northwest to the southeast as it moves across the Caribbean yet again.
