'Stars' lined up in night sky leave some Michiganders mystified

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Several West Michiganders spotted an interesting light display in Sunday night's sky.

People captured photos of what appeared to be a line of stars in the night sky.

"What are the weird stars in a row in the sky?" Sindi Kozminske captured the sight over Mattawan at approximately 7:30 p.m. and posted that question to the Newschannel 3 Facebook page.

Amber Hutson in Kalamazoo's Westwood neighborhood explained what she witnessed.

"They were moving pretty slow and were a consistent distance apart," Hutson said in a comment. "We could see about 6 to 10 at a time and then they would disappear into the atmosphere."

So what caused the mysterious display? You can thank Elon Musk.

What caused the display

The "stars" were actually satellites from SpaceX's Starlink Mission.

The bright dots in the sky are satellites, approximately 175 miles above the surface of the Earth. They appear bright due to their solar array reflecting sunlight back to the dark side of the globe.

According to information from SpaceX, the project hopes to one day provide satellite-based broadband internet to users around the globe through an array of low Earth orbiting satellites.

Back in November, SpaceX launched Starlink's second mission, sending 60 satellites into space on the same rocket. Now, they're slowly moving into their final orbits.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has been vocal on the project, sharing its successes with a goal of one day providing internet coverage to locations where internet coverage has been unreliable, too costly, or never before possible.

According to Space.com, SpaceX was granted permission by the Federal Communications Commission to launch as many as 12,000 Starlink crafts to low Earth orbit, and seeks permission to launch even more.

Starlink was targeted to offer service in parts of the U.S. and Canada after six launches, but plans to expand to global coverage of the populated world after 24 launches.

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell told SpaceNews the company hopes to launch additional rockets in 2020 aimed at having the project operational to consumers by the end of the year.

If you're interested in trying to spot the satellites again, you can utilize timetables from the website Heavens Above. Be sure to change your location in the top right corner of the screen.

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