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Date Published: 11/05/2022

ARCHIVED - Mysterious line of lights blaze across the Malaga night sky

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

The perfect formation of bright satellites stunned star gazers in Andalucía

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Mysterious line of lights blaze across the Malaga night sky

Residents of Malaga were left stunned by an unusual celestial phenomenon early on the morning of Monday May 9, when a perfect line of lights hung suspended in the sky. Far from a ghostly apparition or an alien encounter, the lights are actually part of the SpaceX project owned by multimillionaire Elon Musk.

“At 6.20am today, at the entrance to the Technology Park, I saw some lights in the sky, in a perfect line. Everyone was just staring because we were all startled to see them,” one Costa del Sol observer explained.

But the lights are nothing to be concerned about. They are artificial Starlink satellites and SpaceX plans to eventually launch 40,000 of them, so “it is likely that this sort of phenomenon will be seen more frequently,” astrophysicist José Maria Madiedo of the Andalucía Astrophysics Institute, explained.

The Malaga series of lights was launched from Florida on May 9 and is the seventh carried out by SpaceX since April 1.

“Initially, they stay in an orbit close to our planet and are very close together, but then they move apart and will reach their definitive orbit at a much higher altitude,” Mr Madiedo said, explaining that while the lights would also have been visible the following morning, they will rapidly become less clear.

Starlink’s objective is to launch thousands of satellites that will improve internet access around the world, as well as contributing to the scientific and military fields. And while they may make our browsing experience better, they are wreaking havoc on night sky research because the reflective solar panels they are constructed from can often be brighter than stars.

José María Madiedo expanded on the problem: “It is a very curious and attractive spectacle, but it is detrimental for astronomers because the satellites generate artificial light pollution in the sky and this interferes with the images we need to have and the data we have to analyse for our work, so we are worried about it.” he said.

Image: Starlink

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