Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye(twitter.com) |
Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye(twitter.com) |
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.
The book came out in 2015, and despite having a fictional plot, nearly all of the science checks out.
But that’s a pretty big risk to do with a single novel. Harry Potter had a massive and loyal fan base by the time the 7th and 8th movies came out.
Already happening.
Find out when the satellites pass over you!
Here's the TLE data that someone estimated: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/May-2019/0207.html
Here's an online calculator: https://www.satellite-calculations.com/TLETracker/SatTracker...
Plug in the TLE data, select your town or enter your coordinates, and generate a 24 hour projection! Find a time where the elevation is higher than 10 or 20 degrees so that you can actually see it.
This is using the exact same approach that many redditors said worked for them, but does the data-crunching for you. It's a modified version of the tool you linked to (Jen Satre's excellent satellite calculator), and hardcodes the Starlink data.
6 months ago, so not accurate about the height.
But I have to wonder whether the internet connection can be maintained during cloudy days and what the expected upload/download speeds will be and finally what the expected costs will be.
Affordable and globally available internet could be a game-changer. If viable, couldn't it challenge wireless carriers and ISPs?
Also, aren'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?
Astronomers are going to be going spare
I get this comment is very subjective but surely I'm not the only one thinking it's a bit of an eyesore
Someone else commented something that puts me at more ease but it is worrying at first glance.
Depends on the size of the constellation. Ultimately I think they want to have 3 sats visible at any given time which should be enough. The bands used can penetrate though anyway. I've seen numbers quoted of speeds up to 1gbps, so basically "good enough". I'm currently using a 4 mbps connection just fine and the fastest I have access to is 8 mbps down 0.5mbps up. And I'm getting my browsing done just fine. Costs are up to discussion, the main selling point of Starlink is backbone and the receiver was according to Shotwell one of the main research points to drive the cost down( 1k$ at the time but an obscure tech, they want it down to 300$).
>Affordable and globally available internet could be a game-changer. If viable, couldn't it challenge wireless carriers and ISPs?
No because of density limitations. They can't support enough bandwidth for an entire city. Also direct LoS is required so big buildings will limit you.
>Also, aren'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?
Current sat internet providers just don't sell their receivers in China or any country that doesn't allow them.
Do clouds prevent you from getting a GPS signal? (I know these satellites are LEO but I don’t think that should matter)
Far less of a problem than airplane lights let alone city lights for the enjoyment of the night sky. The ISS is MUCH larger and brighter.
They’re only visible for about an hour after sunset, since the satellite itself still has to be illuminated to be visible.
And yeah I included that last part in the estimate for seeing up to 50, otherwise the projection would be of course up to half of all of them.