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| Over New Haven, Connecticut Sunday night, September 25, 2022 |
That is, basically, what my daughter, Anna, saw over New Haven Harbor as she stood on the second floor porch of her house on Long Island Sound. I made a GIF of the extremely short video because it hurt my eyes and the GIF does not (I don't know why). Anna's iPhone could not handle the data from the sky well. We quickly learned that this was a SpaceX Starlink satellite train. Each satellite has a life of only 1-5 years. A SpaceX rocket had taken off in Florida that day and was deploying dozens of Internet satellites 500 km over the earth. Humorously, just before I found this information, Anna derisively mentioned it was probably some Elon Musk "thing" that she saw. And so it was. The trains have been seen, and videoed, all over the world, but we had not heard of it until Anna showed us.
During the week, another daughter, Amelia, found this article about "strange lights" over Vermont—that were from the same SpaceX launch.
The video below is the most interesting and informative one that I found about Starlink, but it was produced in 2019, so it is out of date. However, the astrophotographer clearly explains this controversial project.
14:55
The video below is more technical (2019, also). When I watch information like this, I learn what I am able to understand and ponder the rest for the future. I admit that I love the mathematics involved. Be sure to tell your children and grandchildren that they will be set for life if they become mathematicians. 😉
15:36
I have not been able to learn if the individual satellites, like the ones Anna saw, are physically tethered to each other when in orbit or at launch.
One and a half hours later, Anna sent us three videos of storms that came in off of the Sound. She was hoping to get a lightning video, but that didn't happen. I merged the three to one, below.
00:00:15
Perhaps some will enjoy and appreciate a GIF of our favorite astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, which one child of mine used to express her understanding of Starlink:
May all of your skies be clear this week!
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| Skywatch Friday |
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