But what is this strange glowing phenomenon found in the Lorient sky? This weekend, several residents were able to observe a trail of twinkling dots, over their heads, following each other at regular intervals. A Lorient woman like Mary-Lauree Lee Hen, surprised by this celestial appearance, shared her photos and video. On the Facebook page “T’es de Lorient si …”.
No, this is not evidence of extraterrestrial life, but well-identified objects. “This is not a UFO, it’s purely human and we’ll see more,” warns Bruno Mouquin, the leader. Rennes Planetarium. According to him, this may be the Starling satellite used by the Elon Musk-led American company SpaceX.
On May 14, 2022, at 8:40 pm GMT, SpaceX launched its 46th batch of 53 Internet satellites. The Falcon 9 rocket was launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida, USA. ? Europe is under the missile base. So we can observe the passage of these satellites. They are requested to be painted in matte black, but what we see is their solar panels. Usually we notice them when there is a launch within 24 or 48 hours, ”says Bruno Mouquin.
This is not a UFO, is it completely human? And we’ll see more and more of it
Similar satellites were already spotted in Brittany in February 2021, But they are more visible at this time of year. “The sun is high in the summer. At the height of these satellites, they glow with the sun. With us, it is dark, but at the North Pole, the leader of the planet explains that it is daylight. Sometimes you see a rounder point like a big blur. This is similar to the fall of the second phase of the Falcon Rocket. We observe that this area removes the gas from the reservoir as it leaves its orbit and returns to the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Unprecedented pollution in the space environment”
Starling satellites have been stationed in low Earth orbit a few hundred kilometers from Earth since 2019. With this galaxy, the creator of Tesla aims to guarantee high-speed Internet coverage in all geographical regions of the world.
Like many astronomers, Bruno Mauguin worries about it. “This is unprecedented pollution of the space environment and it was done without the advice of the scientific community. We have launched 21,000 satellites in 50 years. 3,000 are currently orbiting the Earth. In 10 years, Elon Musk planned to launch 42,000, but Amazon planned to do the same,” he laments. If it’s even more emotional, they should not surprise us anytime soon.May 14, 2022 Launch brings the total number of Starling satellites to 2,600.