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Elon Musk's Starlink Satellites Will Be Visible Over UK This Week

Elon Musk's Starlink Satellites Will Be Visible Over UK This Week

The put on an impressive display

Claire Reid

Claire Reid

Stargazers in the UK might be able to catch a glimpse of Elon Musk's Starlink satellites this week.

Thousands of satellites make up the Starlink and they will be visible on 12 and 14 May. The satellites are designed to provide cheap internet services to locations that have previously struggled.

The satellites will appear as small, bright lights that fly across the sky.

PA

According to The Mirror, it'll be easiest to spot them in the UK at 10.59pm on 12 May or 10.36pm on 14 May. If you want to track them in real time you can use the Starlink website to help you out.

The Starlink website say the satellites offer 'high speed internet across the globe, with performance that far surpasses that of traditional satellite internet, and a global network unbounded by ground infrastructure limitations'.

It continues: "Starlink will deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable."

Musk's company SpaceX has sent thousands of small satellites up into the sky in batches, with five launches so far. In the end the company hopes to have 4,425 units up there.

The firm recently filed plans with the USA's Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which state: "Once fully deployed, the SpaceX system will pass over virtually all parts of the Earth's surface and therefore, in principle, have the ability to provide ubiquitous global service.

"Every point on the Earth's surface will see, at all times, a SpaceX satellite."

Last month the satellites were visible over various parts of Europe, with footage of the impressive light show shared on social media.

Musk recently announced the SpaceX team were working on away to 'fix' the brightness of the satellites.

The tech billionaire was asked on Twitter: "Is there a reason they've been brighter and more noticeable lately? I feel like tons of people are spotting them all of a sudden and they went fairly unnoticed before."

Musk replied: "Solar panel angle during orbit raise/park. We're fixing it now."

In a later tweet he expanded: "We are taking some key steps to reduce satellite brightness btw. Should be much less noticeable during orbit raise by changing solar panel angle & all sats get sunshades starting with launch 9."

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: Interesting, space