Hawkesbury residents shocked by lights in the early morning sky
A resident northwest of Sydney has shared a video of a trail of lights in a “perfect straight line” to a community page, wondering if others could explain what she had witnessed.
A video of a trail of lights moving eerily across the night sky has baffled some locals northwest of Sydney.
The clip, shared on Thursday to the Hawkesbury Community Notice Board on Facebook, showed more than a dozen lights in motion.
A resident asked members of the group if someone could explain what they were.
“Not the greatest video but who can tell me what the lights were in the sky at 4am this morning, bright and in a perfectly straight line?” she wrote in the caption.
“I watched them go right across the sky before getting hubby to record them.”
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A couple of locals jokingly replied it was “aliens”.
Others said it was Santa Claus preparing for his visit in just over a month’s time.
But the real answer, which many responded with, was satellites.
The lights were Starlink satellites which are developed by SpaceX, a company owned by billionaire businessman Elon Musk.
The devices deliver high-speed and low latency broadband capable of supporting streaming, online gaming and video calls in areas where internet is limited or unavailable.
Experts say the satellites are most visible a day or two after being launched, but they become harder to see as they climb and reach their final orbit.
Starlinks sit roughly 550 kilometres above the Earth.
Just last week, Space X launched two rockets each with 29 Starlink satellites on board.
The first lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, followed four hours later by the second rocket at next door’s Cape Canaberal Sapce Force Station.
The Falcon 9 missions, both which were successful, were the 145th and 146th trips by Space X, and many more are expected in coming months.
As of mid-November, there are about 8900 operation Starlinks in orbit. That is about 66 per cent of the total active satellites in low-Earth orbit.
Musk has previously flagged he hopes to deploy more than 40,000 of the devices.
Aussie first responders turn to Starlink
Starlink was first launched in Australia four years ago.
Since then, major companies, small and big businesses and even emergency services have taken up the low-cost internet option, particularly in rural regions of Australia.
Most recently, parts of Western Queensland were cut off from the world when they were inundated with catastrophic flooding in March and April of this year.
Power was cut off and mobile services were significantly reduced when water rose, leaving many residents trapped in their homes.
Sally O’Neil, the mayor of Barcoo Shire which is about 1100 kilometres west of Brisbane, used Starlink to help her communicate at the time of the disaster.
She said the council was heavily considering buying a mobile Starlink device in preparation for another potential natural disaster in future.
“It was very difficult … and communications were down,” she recalled to the ABC in August.
Police are also jumping on board, with Starlink devices introduced to regional stations to improve “network resilience for QPS radio services”.
“We’ve realised that is vital to keep the communication flowing both ways … so setting up these second networks is really important to us,” Central West Patrol Group Senior Sergeant, Francis Smith, said to the public broadcaster.
Telecommunications giant Telstra announced in August it would partner up with Starlink to bring satellite internet to 270 remote Australia Post offices.
Australia Post said the devices will give its customers reliable and faster internet so they can have improved access to services such as paying bills, banking and postage.
More than 200,000 customers, mainly in remote areas, currently use Starlink.
Originally published as Hawkesbury residents shocked by lights in the early morning sky
