“Balls of light” observed in the sky last night: what were they?

Several strange lights were seen in the sky during the night from Thursday to Friday. What is it about?

“Something impressive and incomprehensible“, “A line of bright objects in the sky around 7:23 p.m.“, “Light balls in the sky“: Several of you have contacted us via the orange Alert Us button to notify us of the presence of bright spots in the sky.

“A lineage of something, which I cannot tell you, which rises towards the sky. After seeing it and filming it for a few seconds, I can tell you that it was impressive and inexplicable to me“, testifies Sandro.

In the photos sent to us, we can see ordered sparkling points in the sky, like a line of light. But what is it about?

“This is probably a deployment of Starlink satellites (the satellite system developed by Elon Musk’s company Space“, explains Sabrina Bechet, seismologist at the Royal Observatory of Belgium. The latter affirms that there had already been a launch on October 30.

“Elon Musk launches his Starlink satellites in groups, like bunches of grapes. Once they are in space, they are all next to each other and little by little, they will unfold and distribute themselves all around the Earth… But it will take a while“, explains Yaëlle Nazé, astrophysicist at ULiège.

“In the deployment phase, the satellites are close as in the photos sent“, confirms Sabrina Bechet. “Then, they move away little by little and we only see small points of light far away from each other..

What are these satellites used for?

“These are telecommunications satellites. They will allow you to use your phone wherever you want to contact whoever you want or use the Internet, with a Starlink subscription, obviously.“, replies Yaëlle Nazé.

“For them to be able to connect you constantly, it takes a lot. This is why Elon Musk currently has more than six thousand satellites in orbit to ensure constant connectivity“, she adds.

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