Star Tribune
See a string of lights in the Minnesota night sky? Here’s what it is.
It’s a specific, unsettling feeling that comes when you look up at the night sky and see a train of bright lights speeding across the heavens.
When it happens, people often wonder if it’s a sign of UFO activity — like one person last week who saw a video of the phenomenon in the west metro.
“Anyone else see the UFO a bit ago? Got this video sent to me from someone going west on Highway 212 between Eden Prairie and Chanhassen. He says it was a line of lights that disappeared,” a post on X said.
The line of bright lights isn’t a sign of life from some unknown planet; they are satellites from Starlink, the internet service from SpaceX.
“It’s the craziest thing, if you didn’t know what it was,” said Peter Peterson, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Minnesota Duluth, who uses Starlink for home internet. “It looks like 60 stars in a conga line, basically moving really fast.”
Satellite internet is nothing new. But older players in satellite internet use geostationary satellites, which are positioned about 22,000 miles over earth and always orbit over the same patch of the planet, Peterson said.
Starlink satellites orbit about 342 miles above earth, Peterson said. That means faster internet because the signal has to travel a fraction as far. But it also requires a lot more satellites, because there always needs to be one overhead to ensure service.
The first Starlink satellites launched in 2019. Since then, it’s become fairly common to see them marching across the sky, and it likely will become more common as Starlink expands and as competitors potentially enter the market. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell,who tracks SpaceX launches, estimates more than 5,500 Starlink satellites have launched. Consulting firm Deloitte predicts as many as 50,000 satellites could be in low orbit by 2030.
What you’re seeing when you spot a train of Starlink satellites in the sky is a recent launch, Peterson said. When the satellites are first launched from a rocket, they are close together and fairly bright. As they reach their intended orbit, they drift apart and appear to dim.
Astronomical concerns
They don’t dim completely, though, which is a concern for astronomers and others who are worried about dark skies.
“I can see them every night,” said Bob King, an amateur astronomer and columnist in Duluth who goes by Astro Bob. “When you’re looking at a galaxy, you want to see the spiral arms, and you want to see the details of nebula. And then here come a bunch of Starlinks, you know, like ‘pew pew laser coming through,’ and they’re very distracting.”
SpaceX has been responsive to some concerns, King said. A coating has been added that makes the satellites dimmer and they now tilt, reflecting less light.
“The problem is, is that there are just so many of them,” King said.
As people hope to see northern lights amid a peak solar storm cycle into next year, more may notice the launched satellites.
It’s not just an issue for amateurs, but also professionals who can edit out aberrations in their photos caused by Starlink, but may lose important data in their analysis by doing so, King said.
On the aggregate level, so many satellites may cause light pollution in the sky that could affect an astronomer’s ability to see.
Jessica Heim, a Central Minnesota resident, said she has been involved in many discussions with the International Astronomical Union about the effect of satellites on astronomy.
Heim, a PhD student in cultural astronomy at the University of Southern Queensland, said the sheer number of satellites also raises questions about people’s relationship with the night sky.
Across human history, the night sky has played a huge role in everything from navigation to timekeeping to culture, Heim said.
These days, many people already live in places where they can’t see the Milky Way because of ground-based light pollution sources — something that diminishes the human connection with the night sky, Heim said. You can generally escape light pollution in a remote place like the Boundary Waters or Antarctica, but you couldn’t escape satellites.
“Even if you go out someplace that has a clear sky and you can see that … how do the satellites change that?” she said.
To learn when Starlink satellites are visible in your area, visit https://findstarlink.com/.
Star Tribune
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, on the campaign trial, gives a pep talk to the Mankato West High School Scarlets, a team he once coached.
MANKATO – The football players in their pads jogged out to face their rivals Friday night as Gov. Tim Walz, back home briefly as he campaigns across the country as vice presidential nominee, cheered them on.
“Don’t forget to have fun, enjoy,” Walz told players on the football team at Mankato West High School, where he worked as a geography teacher and assistant football coach before launching a political career that carried him to the Democratic Party’s national ticket.
Since choosing Walz as her running mate, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has touted his background as a football coach, hunter and gun owner, as Democrats reach out to Midwestern voters and look for inroads with men.
Walz’s stop in Mankato is one of a series of media stops in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the governor is talking high school football and hunting.
“This is the best of America,” Walz told reporters after greeting the players of Mankato West ahead of their rivalry game with Mankato East. He said he would visit his old classroom, before heading to watch the game.
A quarter center ago, Walz was the assistant defensive football coach for the 1999 Mankato West football team that won the state championship. That year’s crosstown rivalry game was a spark for Mankato West as it headed toward its state championship, said John Considine, a Mankato West alum and right tackle on that 1999 Class 4A championship team.
“It’s good to have him back,” Considine said Friday.
Local Republicans called Walz’s appearance a stunt. “They’re getting desperate to get the word out,” said Yvonne Simon, chair of the Blue Earth County GOP, adding she’s doesn’t think the governor’s “coach” branding is catching on.
“There’s a fair amount of stuff we’ve digested over the years,” Kerfoot told the Star Tribune at the time of the sale. “It’ll take a while to pick all of it out of me.”
In recent years, he and Sue have spent summers in Minnesota and then traveled back to Missouri to be close to family for the rest of the year.
Visitors love to drop in and talk about Justine Kerfoot or Bruce Kerfoot or the years they spent working at the lodge, Fredrikson said. He’s found that Bruce’s energy seemingly matched that of his mother, who died in 2001 when she was 94.
“He was one of those people that was able to get stuff done more easily or better than other people,” Fredrikson said. “Maybe because of who he was, or maybe because the stars align for this kind of person.”
In a social media post, Kerfoot’s family said they had peace knowing he and his mother “were paddling together to their shore lunch spot.”
Mark Hennessy knew Kerfoot for 40 years, but has had a closer view for the past three years. He said without Kerfoot, the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center, located near the end of the Gunflint Trail, wouldn’t exist. Whenever there was a work project, the executive director said, Kerfoot would show up.
A teenage motorcyclist was killed in a collision with an SUV at a Burnsville intersection, officials said Friday.
The crash occurred shortly after 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Burnsville Parkway and Interstate 35W, police said.
The motorcyclist was identified by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office as Peter Vsevolod Genis, 17, of Burnsville.
An SUV driver was turning left from westbound Burnsville Parkway to northbound 35W when Genis went through a red light while heading east and struck the SUV.
The SUV driver and a woman with him, both from Burnsville, were not hurt.
The other vehicle was a Mercedes SUV. The driver was a 30-year-old male from Burnsville, with a 29-year-old female passenger from Burnsville. Neither of them was injured.
