Is the sky falling, or is it just Starlink satellites?

The sky isn’t falling, but you could be forgiven for thinking so in parts of North America recently. Residents of California and Canada have been seeing what look like shooting stars or falling meteorites almost daily lately, but they’re actually not a natural phenomenon. According to a report from EarthSky, they’re just Starlink satellites falling back to Earth.

Low-Earth orbit (LEO) Internet-providing satellites like Starlink have about a five-year replacement cycle, at which point they start re-entering and burning up in the atmosphere. Right now, one to two LEOs are heading back to Earth per day, accounting for the recent uptick in sightings. Jonathan McDowell of Jonathan’s Space Report, which keeps track of all the activity in orbit, expects that the number of Internet satellites reaching their end of life will increase to as many as five per day before too long. At least they’re going out in spectacular fashion.