Line of Lights Moving Across the Sky? It’s Probably a Starlink Train
A row of evenly spaced lights sliding silently across the night sky is one of the most common things reported as a UFO. It is almost always a “train” of SpaceX Starlink satellites. For a few weeks after each launch, the newly released satellites travel close together in a line while they climb to their working orbits, catching sunlight as they go.
What it looks like
- A straight line of 10 to 60 or more lights, one behind another.
- All moving at the same steady speed in the same direction, without blinking.
- Completely silent.
- Usually seen an hour or two after sunset or before sunrise, when the satellites are sunlit but the sky is dark.
- The lights may fade out one after another as they pass into Earth’s shadow.
How to check
- Use our sky checker with the time and place: it looks for Starlink satellites passing on the same track.
- Check whether a Starlink launch happened in the previous few weeks.
- Aircraft blink and make noise; a Starlink train does neither.
Questions
Why are Starlink satellites in a line?
They are released together from the same rocket and spread out gradually as they raise their orbits, so for the first few weeks they follow each other in a tight line.
Can you see Starlink every night?
Individual Starlink satellites are visible most clear nights, but the striking “train” is only seen in the weeks after a launch.