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Australians mistake Elon Musk satellites for UFOs

Australians mistake Elon Musk satellites for UFOs

Mystic lights moving across the sky have taken some Australians by surprise.

People on the New South Wales Central Coast, and Sydney, took to social media (particularly TikTok) to share videos of what they initially thought were UFOs flying over their homes over the weekend.

One man from Sydney said that he was fishing when he saw the satellites.

“It’s currently 3:4am, and around 3:3am exactly, I was looking at my phone, and I was fishing at Hunter’s Point. I look in the sky, and I just see some aeroplane lights, but I’m not sure,” he said in the video.

“There’s about 20 of them travelling in one line. It was very weird.”

He also added that when the clock struck 3:34 am, the satellites disappeared.

@hamid.nehme

Tell me what this could be I feel like it’s a ufo! #ufo #aliens #sydney #sky #area51

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But the mystery was soon cleared up when people realised they were actually Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites.

Astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker from A.N.U. Canberra told 7News Australia, a that these types of launches would steadily become commonplace in the years to come.

“Instead of seeing stars everywhere, you see satellites everywhere,” he said.

On Friday, Musk’s company launched its 35th set of Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, using a Falcon 9 rocket.

The 49 Starlink satellites onboard that were launched were reportedly each about the size of a table.

Starlink is a constellation of more than 1,800 satellites that has the goal of providing internet connectivity to the majority of the world’s population, particularly in rural communities.

Starlink internet is already available in over 20 countries, such as the US, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, and the UK, as part of its beta offering.

In the next few decades, Musk hopes to send 42,000 satellites to space.

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