Lucknow: In a fascinating incident that could be witnessed from several parts of Uttar Pradesh on Monday night, several people reported seeing a mysterious trail of lights in the sky. While the phenomenon left many awestruck and wondering about what this unusual sight could be, many netizens took to social media to click a picture of the 'train-like structure of lights in the night sky'. Most people, including laymen as well as people with some expertise on the matter, have concluded these lights to be SpaceX's Starlink satellites deployed by Elon Musk on September 11, as was officially confirmed by the company.
While many netizens tried to quench their curiosity through Twitter with the help of pictures coupled with questions tagging NASA, ISRO, and SpaceX in their tweets -- astronomer Sumit Srivastava from the Indira Gandhi Planetarium said that the 'train of lights' will most likely be visible in the sky for coming few days. Speaking about the Starlink-51 satellites -- 34 of which have been deployed recently by SpaceX -- Srivastava said these satellites orbit the earth at a lower altitude than other communication satellites and provide internet service to their customers directly all over the earth.
Also read: SpaceX launches 51 more Starlink satellites in its 40th mission
He further informed that these kinds of satellites came into operation for the first time in 2018. "So far, about 2000 satellites have been installed in low altitude earth orbit. They revolve at an approximate height of 550 km from the surface of the earth and are therefore visible from the earth sometimes. Though they are not always visible as starkly as they were seen in parts of UP recently, their visibility is usually high shortly after being launched. They become fainter as they reach their final altitude and position in orbit," he clarified.
"Starlink satellites are 60 times closer to the earth's surface than conventional satellites. The benefit of these satellites is that because of the smaller distance than usual, the user will have internet connectivity with less latency. That is, it will take very little time for the data to reach its destination through a medium. Starlink's service is said to be 40 percent faster than fiber optics' light," he added.
Starlink satellites have been spotted earlier in the sky, in USA’s Tulsa in December 2021. This is the first time that they have shown up in India's night sky, leaving the Uttar Pradesh citizens baffled and excited at the same time.
