Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye

Looks a lot like the cloud ark from Neil Stevenson’s hard science fiction book ”Seveneves”.<p>The long of the short of it is that moon goes boom, kills life on earth, humanity survives onboard the ISS and a flurry of small habitation pods which are splayed out into a string so they share an orbit, but isolated in case they get hit by space debris.<p>The book came out in 2015, and despite having a fictional plot, nearly all of the science checks out.

Imagine all the people who have never heard about SpaceX that see these. They will think the aliens have arrived :)

Counted 52 spots, plus an additional 2 which only appeared briefly and dimly, a little off the track of the others. 4 or 5 dots seem to be pairs. So that acounts for pretty much all satellites. I&#x27;d like to experience this for myself. With 12000 of them the sky will be quite littered with them though. Astronomy will never be the same again.

Here is another video: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;338361997" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;338361997</a>

Good info on starlink: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wyliodrin.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;starlink-the-internet-of-space" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wyliodrin.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;starlink-the-internet-of-space</a><p>6 months ago, so not accurate about the height.

I respect and admire the risks Musk is willing to take and am amazed that he is able to find financial backers for his projects.<p>But I have to wonder whether the internet connection can be maintained during cloudy days and what the expected upload&#x2F;download speeds will be and finally what the expected costs will be.<p>Affordable and globally available internet could be a game-changer. If viable, couldn&#x27;t it challenge wireless carriers and ISPs?<p>Also, aren&#x27;t there geopolitical ramifications. Would China, Russia, EU, etc allow their citizens to access the starlink system? Or will starlink have to be censored, filtered and monitored in these regions?

Is this only until they are in position or are going to see this everytime they fly over?

is this what its always going to look like when we have 12000 of the things in the sky?<p>Astronomers are going to be going <i>spare</i>

Okay that&#x27;s interesting but I have to say it&#x27;s also quite ugly. Is this a new trend to cluster satellites like this? If so what advantage does it bring and is it worth that ugly streak appearing in the night?<p>I get this comment is very subjective but surely I&#x27;m not the only one thinking it&#x27;s a bit of an eyesore