";s:4:"text";s:3500:"The thousands of tiny satellites look like moving stars that are flying across the sky in a straight line - like a train. Two of them briefly grew brilliant, evidently reflecting sunlight. Given the date and timing, this could be most like the Starlink satellites in their "stacked" configuration. Satellites would not change formation like that, but there is a possibility atmospheric distortions (like the "waves of heat" you can see coming off the road on a hot day) could have caused the effect with a single passing satellite. Less than 24 hours after SpaceX's launch of the first 60 Starlink satellites, amateur astronomer Dr. Marco Langbroek (sattrackcam.blogspot.com) captured … They won't stay in a line; they have ion … The thousands of tiny satellites look like moving stars that are flying across the sky in a straight line - like a train. SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites in a train Thursday (May 24) and you can see them in the night sky now! Seeing as the company has been granted to fly 12,000 satellites as part of the project - which could eventually be increased to 30,000 - it's likely that they could become a relatively common sight in the skies above Britain in the future. They seemed to be moving northerly, in the same part of the sky as Venus. I counted 15 satellites, moving in the same way as others above describe. Formation Flying for Satellites and UAVs Garrick Merrill Marshall Space Flight Center NASA Huntsville, AL Garrick.Merrill@nasa.gov Chris Becker Marshall Space Flight Center NASA Huntsville, AL Christopher.M.Becker@nasa.gov Abstract—A formation monitoring and control system was developed utilizing mesh networking and decentralized control. Passes are also only shown if they occur during the hours of darkness. However, you probably would have noticed the stars doing the same thing if that were the case. By default, satellites are only shown if they attain a maximum brightness of second magnitude.