This artificial satellite confuses scientists since it shines brightest at night
The Sun is perhaps the most brilliant celestial body in our heavens. It is one among the universe’s countless brilliant, dazzling lights. The Sun seems enormous and dazzling because it is the star nearest to our planet. While Venus sometimes seems brightest at night, it was previously thought that stars from galaxies billions of light years distant were the brightest in the earth’s night sky. But no one would have predicted that on certain evenings, a man-made artificial satellite would end up being the brightest in the sky. The BlueWalker 3 prototype satellite, rather than a star or planet, is one of the brightest objects visible in the night sky, according to IAU experts, who surprised the scientific world on October 2.
According to the Nature article, the BlueWalker 3 seemed brighter than other stars. It belongs to AST Space Mobile Company and is a prototype satellite. It is a member of the set of satellites that are expected to provide mobile or broadband services everywhere in the globe. The 693-square-foot satellite is the first in a series of Bluebirds, or larger-scale, future commercial spacecraft.
In September of last year, the Bluewalker 3 satellite was launched. It effectively serves as a large mirror that continually reflects sunlight towards Earth, giving the planet the appearance of being exceptionally brilliant. A spokesperson for AST told Space.com that the company plans to quickly construct a cluster of around 90 of these satellites. Some astronomers are concerned about this growth because they worry that soon artificial light will ruin the night sky.
In an interview, Patrick Seitzer, an emeritus astronomer at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who was not involved in the study, said: “The study shows us that there are no boundaries to satellite brightness, but I’m worried that the night sky will never look the same because we’re going to see a very large number of large satellites launched in the next decade.”
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) advises against using the Bluewalker 3 satellite because it is 400 times brighter. IAU scientists used a magnitude scale, on which the brightest objects are the smallest, to calculate the brightness of satellites in the night sky. If the Bluewalker-3 satellite were a star, its brightness of only +0.4 would place it in the top ten brightest stars in the sky.
