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[iconmaster]

After a perfect day of beautiful weather, reading outside while tending to some smoked turkey, and enjoying an evening fire in the firepit, I was stargazing a bit with my daughter. For a moment I was distracted trying to locate a better stargazing app on my phone and my daughter suddenly yells out, "Look, dad!"

In the clear Iowa night sky, a chain of several dozen stars was moving in a nearly-perfect line from the west to the east. They proceeded without haste, but with reasonable speed, until they were lost to sight.

Long story short, what I saw was Starlink -- Elon Musk's satellite project for beaming the internet from space.

Supposedly the satellites will elevate to a higher orbit over the coming months until they're no longer visible.

What Are Those Strange Moving Lights In The Night Sky? Elon Musk’s ‘Starlink’ Satellites Explained

These lights are actually satellites, launched into space by the U.S. company SpaceX, run by South African entrepreneur Elon Musk. And they're a bit controversial.

www.forbes.com

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Long story short, what I saw was Starlink -- Elon Musk's satellite project for beaming the internet

Iowa

edit

also, this is exactly what a G-Man secret agent would say. Y’all are Area 51 covert ops. I know it’s aliens. I know.

 

[Dunedain_Ranger]

I saw them last weekend I was tripping out because they kept coming in a singular line . Bad enough I was under the influence I was thinking it was aliens lining up an attack or planes dropping corona virus on us lol don’t judge me I was heavily messed up

 

[SKM1]

Having a swarm of tens of thousands of satellites orbiting the earth trips me out, but I'm definitely looking forward to having access to the Internet in all parts of the world. It'll be a game changer.

 

[Kenpachii]

Hows this shit even legal, image every company doing this shit, u will have a sky full of this crap.

 

[SKM1]

Hows this shit even legal, image every company doing this shit, u will have a sky full of this crap.

I dream of a future where my son looks up at the sky through his telescope and is met with a Cocacola® billboard attached to a satellite.

 

[Birdo]

I've been looking for these every night at the right time and still can't see them

 

[Tesseract]

hope you guys are getting a good look at the stars while you still can

 

[SKM1]

hope you guys are getting a good look at the stars while you still can

I think we mostly crossed that bridge with the advent modern lighting in cities.
In any case it's just a matter of time before we figure out how to make satellites invisible, or at least mostly so.

 

[VGEsoterica]

Saw them in Chicago walking the dog. Trippy to look up and see what appear to be stars in perfect alignment. Chicago Trib ran an article on them as well as apparently multiple people had seen it

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

hope you guys are getting a good look at the stars while you still can

I just watched Ad Astra last night. I wanna be a moon pirate.

 

[GeorgPrime]

I dream of a future where my son looks up at the sky through his telescope and is met with a Cocacola® billboard attached to a satellite.

Just wait for pornsite commercials and alien titties in space... this is the REAL deal!

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

I've always said that Elon Musk is developing the technology that the Anti-Christ will use when he arrives in the 2030's.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

I've always said that Elon Musk is developing the technology that the Anti-Christ will use when he arrives in the 2030's.

Is the Anti-Christ actually Elon’s baby with Grimes?

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Is the Anti-Christ actually Elon’s baby with Grimes?

YOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

 

[Kamina]

 

[Tesseract]

I've always said that Elon Musk is developing the technology that the Anti-Christ will use when he arrives in the 2030's.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

You guys all realize how big the sky is, how small these things are relative to that, and how far away they are in orbit? Look up some diagrams *to scale* and marvel at how tiny you are.

 

[Tesseract]

You guys all realize how big the sky is, how small these things are relative to that, and how far away they are in orbit? Look up some diagrams *to scale* and marvel at how tiny you are.

still bright as fuck in an already noise polluted sky

 

[triplestation]

people 2-3 generations from now are gonna live in a star wars world god i am jelly

 

[Deleted member 1159]

still bright as fuck in an already noise polluted sky

Is the plan for there to always be a trail of lights in this thing or are they just setting them up?

 

[DeeDogg_]

Wow the timing on this thread..
It’s crazy how little we know about reality

 

[eot]

Hows this shit even legal, image every company doing this shit, u will have a sky full of this crap.

It's a massive problem for astronomy actually. SpaceX won't be the only company launching tens of thousands of these things either.

 

[iconmaster]

Is the plan for there to always be a trail of lights in this thing or are they just setting them up?

Supposedly they will become less visible as they graduate to their final, intended orbit.

You guys all realize how big the sky is, how small these things are relative to that, and how far away they are in orbit? Look up some diagrams *to scale* and marvel at how tiny you are.

Dude I'm just pointing out the pretty lights

 

[Kenpachii]

It's a massive problem for astronomy actually. SpaceX won't be the only company launching tens of thousands of these things either.

They need to make laws that nothing but governments can shoot satellites in the air, this is getting absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

Dude I'm just pointing out the pretty lights

I was more responding to the folks seemingly worried about the future of a sky being full of bright satellites or ads, not you bud.

 

[SKM1]

https://www.spacex.com/news/2020/04/28/starlink-update

SpaceX is launching Starlink to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband connectivity across the globe, including to locations where internet has traditionally been too expensive, unreliable, or entirely unavailable. We also firmly believe in the importance of a natural night sky for all of us to enjoy, which is why we have been working with leading astronomers around the world to better understand the specifics of their observations and engineering changes we can make to reduce satellite brightness. Our goals include:

Making the satellites generally invisible to the naked eye within a week of launch. We're doing this by changing the way the satellites fly to their operational altitude, so that they fly with the satellite knife-edge to the Sun. We are working on implementing this as soon as possible for all satellites since it is a software change.

Minimizing Starlink's impact on astronomy by darkening satellites so they do not saturate observatory detectors. We're accomplishing this by adding a deployable visor to the satellite to block sunlight from hitting the brightest parts of the spacecraft. The first unit is flying on the next launch, and by flight 9 in June all future Starlink satellites will have sun visors. Additionally, information about our satellites' orbits are located on space-track.org to facilitate observation scheduling for astronomers. We are interested in feedback on ways to improve the utility and timeliness of this information.

 

[Quasicat]

There’s just something about looking up at the sky and only seeing the stars, planets, and moon. I can remember shortly after 9/11 going out at 3am and seeing only the stars as all planes had been grounded. I go out now to stargaze and there are so many artificial lights in the sky.

 

[Robot Carnival]

would this be a (increase of) risk of causing the Kessler effect? like we have so much junk in orbit that the debris will trigger kinda a chain reaction that in the end pretty much blankets the whole planet and making space flight impossible?

 

[MetalAlien]

Hows this shit even legal, image every company doing this shit, u will have a sky full of this crap.

It's a real concern among astronomers. They are trying to get this stopped.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Strange chain?

That was just Quagmire in a hot air balloon.

 

[Kamina]

Strange chain?

That was just Quagmire in a hot air balloon.

“We all know whats going on this thought bubble; the kids dont, but we do.“ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

[Phase]

Hows this shit even legal, image every company doing this shit, u will have a sky full of this crap.

Unfortunately it's just a matter of time unless we decide to do something about it. We must fight before we are overwhelmed by these sky gods!

 

[Valonquar]

So what you are saying is, 5G isn't to blame, it's Elon Musk's satellite radiation killing everyone?