Stargazers have been puzzled all weekend, after a bright trail of what looked to be a shooting star appeared over Ras Al Khaimah.
At 11:05pm on Friday, residents saw a fireball flying across the RAK sky. It left a streak of light in its path.
It turns out, the lights in the upper atmosphere were actually caused by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Starlink – which is Musk’s project to provide wireless internet to remote locations such as areas of the desert and part of Africa – is not just a single satellite but a network of them. What would-be astronomers were looking at was the launch of a new crop of Starlink satellites.
“A bright light was seen in the sky of the UAE on Saturday September 5, 2020 at 11.05 pm, which appeared to be heading from the North to the South.”
“It was a satellite that entered the atmosphere, named Starlink 40, which was launched on May 24, 2019, and is part of a satellite internet network for SpaceX,” said the International Astronomy Centre on its official Twitter account.
Last year SpaceX launched a grand total of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit. When the project is finished, Musk hopes to have almost 12,000 satellites in orbit, able to beam internet down to thousands on the ground.
The entire project is slated to cost more than US$10 billion by the time it is completed in 2025.
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