Look up at the night sky at the right time and you might see what seems like a disco ball shimmering and glinting back.
The founder of the company that launched the first rocket into orbit from New Zealand this week said he deployed a secret satellite he believes will be the brightest object in the night sky.
The New Zealander has named the beach ball-sized object ‘Humanity Star’ and says he hopes it will remind people of their precarious place in a vast universe.
Using the tracker below click on ‘Find my Location’ on the top right-hand corner.
Type in a location and it will tell you when the satellite will next be visible and for how long.
Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck is pictured with his ‘Humanity Star’ in Auckland, New Zealand. The New Zealander has named the beach ball-sized object ‘Humanity Star’ and says he hopes it will remind people of their precarious place in a vast universe
Peter Beck, the New Zealander who founded California-based Rocket Lab, says he used most of the space aboard his test Electron rocket to house his unusual object.
The satellite, not much bigger than a large beach ball, is a geodesic sphere made from carbon-fiber with 65 reflective panels.
It is designed to spin rapidly and reflect the sun’s light to Earth.
It’s expected to orbit the Earth every 90 minutes in an elliptical pattern, travelling at 27 times the speed of sound.
‘The goal is make people look up and realise they are on a rock in a giant universe,’ Mr Beck said.
He has lofty ambitions for his experiment and hopes the satellite will become a focal point for humanity.
He wants it to serve as a reminder for people to look past their daily concerns and to face larger challenges like climate change and resource shortages.
That’s why Mr Beck said he resisted the comparison to a disco ball, because he wants it to be about something more serious.
‘But in all honesty, yes, it’s a giant mirror ball,’ he said.
Mr Beck said the object should be noticeable but will not be much brighter than other stars and satellites and should not be distracting to aviators or stargazers.
Peter Beck says he used most of the space aboard his test Electron rocket (pictured) to house his unusual object. He wants it to serve as a reminder for people to look past their daily concerns
The Humanity Star is expected to orbit the Earth for about nine months before it is pulled back into Earth’s gravity and burned upon re-entry into the atmosphere.
Mr Beck said he is hoping to launch future Humanity Stars, but said the project is his own particular passion and he’ll have to wait to see how other people react and also consider whether it’s financially viable.
Following the successful test launch, Rocket Lab hopes to begin commercial satellite launches soon.
The company says the Humanity Star will be best seen in New Zealand after February and in the U.S. from March due to its changing orbital position. It can be tracked at www.thehumanitystar.com.
Jim Clark, a graduate student at MIT’s STARlab told Quartz in an email that on its current orbit it will not be visible at night between latitudes of 46° north and 46° south.
In time, the orbit will tilt, making it visible at dawn and dusk to almost the entire world.
‘It doesn’t get really good until late February, not really until March that say observers on the US mainland are going to be able to see it easily,’ said Jonathan McDowell from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.