Tauranga Astronomical Society president David Greig said a lot of people confused the Starlink satellites with UFOs.
“If you didn’t know what they were you’d think the aliens were coming.”
He said SpaceX which was owned by Elon Musk did its first launch on May 24, 2019 and they typically launched up to 60 at a time.
“They are packed together like pancakes inside a SpaceX rocket and they are deployed into space where they slowly spread out in a line. Eventually, they are evenly spaced in an orbit around the earth.”
Greig said satellites otherwise known as ‘Starlink trains’ would be visible again on Friday morning from about 5:50am - the highest in the North East as seen from Tauranga.
Although the sky might be getting a bit light by then.
“When these lines or satellites go over, you’ll see a line of lights that look like little stars going across the sky.”
The trains had reinvigorated interest in astronomy.
“We often post Facebook alerts for when there are some good opportunities to see these. It’s quite popular with a lot of people and actually generated quite a lot of interest in astronomy.
“We noticed quite an increase in the number of people coming along to our public meeting, following the Starlink launches. They were generally interested in the satellite trains and also wanted to learn more about the planets and what else is in the sky.”
