Can artificial satellites be seen with the unaided eye?
Most definitely they can! In fact, many people are surprised that an object orbiting hundreds of miles above our heads can be readily seen without the use of binoculars or a telescope. From the launch of the first Sputnik in 1957 to the present, the number of satellites in space has grown at a spectacular rate – there are now more than 10,000 good-sized hunks of metal orbiting the Earth, though not all are functional satellites. In fact, the total number of active satellites is about 600. From the days of the old Soviet Union, countless hundreds of discarded rocket casings and cylinders from their Kosmos program alone were left in orbit. Some of these can shine like a moderately bright star. British astronomer Desmond King-Hele once noted that a satellite “looks like a star that has taken leave of its senses and decided to move off to another part of the sky.” If you go out and carefully study the sky near dusk or dawn, the odds are that you should not have to wait more than 15 minutes
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