In the evening of Friday, April 24, the residents of Grenoble and around were numerous to be surprised, on social networks, to see a series of luminous points crossing the sky of Isère. A “nice show” whose provenance has caused some internet users to doubt.
Not a plane or a shooting star, this sparkling line was in fact a train of Starlink satellites from the American giant SpaceX. It is not the first time that we can observe satellites launched by the firm of the American billionaire Ellon Musk in the sky of Isère.
Starlink is an Internet access project aimed at deploying a constellation of several thousand telecommunications satellites. Dozens of objects will be launched in low orbit in the coming days. This luminous phenomenon could therefore happen again in the evening of Saturday April 25 and Sunday April 26, if the weather remains mild and the clouds do not spoil the party.
When can we see them again?
You don’t want to miss the next throws? The site Heavens above lists all the passages of Starlink objects, among other astronomical phenomena. Just fill in your city, and you can check the dates and times of the crossings over your home.
In Grenoble, the next satellite train will be observable this Saturday evening from 10:03 p.m. And the show will end at 10:08 p.m. The brightness of objects is between 1.4 and 1.8, enough to see them with the naked eye. The lower this figure, the magnitude of the objects, the more they will be easily observable.
In addition, it should be known that Starlink satellites are always oriented from West to East, as reported by our colleagues from Numerama. A beginning of indication to know where to look in the sky. And a good distraction during confinement.
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