The night of 2026-08-21

A quiet night, even though a Starlink train has been visible since its launch 69 hours ago, which is the most commonly reported "string of lights" there is.

Measured

What was genuinely in the sky

• A Starlink train was visible: Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-50, launched 69 hours before. The most commonly reported "string of lights" there is.
• A Starlink train was visible: Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-39, launched 10 hours before. The most commonly reported "string of lights" there is.
• The Delta Aquariids meteor shower was active.
• The Perseids meteor shower was active.
• The moon was waxing, 64% lit. Geomagnetic activity was quiet, Kp 3.3.

What the instruments recorded

The Global Meteor Network's cameras, 1,300 of them across 42 countries, computed 3,429 meteor trajectories for this night, 619 of them over North America, led by the Perseids with 149.

This section is added about a week after the night itself, because computing trajectories from camera data takes that long. Instrument data: Global Meteor Network (CC BY 4.0).

Spiking online

• Dreams that will not stay dreams: 1.46x its usual attention

Talked about that day

• The hat man and the old hag: 100+ public posts
• Someone in the room: 38 public posts
• Orbs and strange lights: 11 public posts
• Glitches in the matrix: 5 public posts
• Shadow people: 4 public posts
• Dreams that will not stay dreams: 4 public posts
• Something in the woods: 1 public posts