A Cosmic View of Starlink: A "Constellation" of Satellites

I experienced an exceptional treat this morning around 6:30am as I was driving out of the neighborhood to meet my girlfriends for our Thursday morning workout.  The sky was exceptionally clear and the stars were bright in the sky.  As I was driving down High Country Trail, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a long line of very bright objects in the sky.  My initial though was that I was seeing a long-lasting fiery remnant of a shooting star - but it didn't disappear!!!  I immediately pulled over safely to look up and investigate as this was no normal constellation or heavenly phenomenon that I had seen before.  Then I realized that the line of objects was MOVING! The line of bright objects was very bright and very high in altitude where satellites normally would be.  The objects were not blinking like airplanes.  They were moving very fast from north to south.  I was, surprisingly enough, able to get some decent pictures with my iPhone 8. Please note: These are not time-lapse photos.  These photos are quick snapshots of many objects in a line in the sky! 

So, thanks to friends on Facebook where I first posted the pictures in hopes of getting some immediate feedback on what I was seeing, I was informed that what I saw was neither military nor aliens (thank goodness!).  The line of bright objects are the Starlink Satellites put into orbit by Elon Musk's SpaceX Corporation.  According to sources cited on Wikipedia, Starlink will eventually be a constellation network of over 60,000 mass-produced small satellites in low-Earth orbit working in combination with ground receivers to provide satellite internet access to we lowly humans.  The satellites may also be used for military, scientific, or exploratory purposes.  The first batch of Starlink satellites were launched on February 22, 2018.  The most recent launch (launch #19) took place this week on February 16, 2021. Typically, 60 satellites are launched at a time, so there are roughly 1,140 Starlink satellites circling the Earth right now. Apparently after launch, the satellites eventually separate from one another.  So seeing them still in their "launch line" orbit was a unique event.  According to Elon Musk, the satellites are traveling on 25 orbital planes clustered between 53 degrees north and south of the equator.  Cool!  

I am so glad to live in a Dark-Sky city where one can observe the heavens and scientific phenomena like this one!