By Cassius Kamarampi, The Mind Unleashed

Russian scientists recently announced plans to release a satellite into Earth’s orbit in 2 weeks, an object that is supposed to become, for a short period of time, the brightest object in the sky beyond the moon, brighter than Venus the brightest planet, or Sirius, the brightest star.

It will be launched July 14th, and will only be in the sky temporarily, according to the scientists.

It is a Russian CubeSat fit with solar reflectors named “Mayak.” It was recently completed at the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow, made of “thin polymer film 20 times thinner than human hair.” It will be launched from this location in Kazakhstan:

(Image credit: Daily Mail)

The scientists claim it could help clear debris in space to actually make the sky clearer for astronomers, and that it could help them study light, but several astronomers have complained that it is useless and will cause unnecessary light pollution.

According to New Atlas:

“Astronomers measure the brightness of celestial bodies using a scale called apparent magnitude, where the lower the number an object is assigned, the brighter it is. As the brightest thing in the sky by a wide margin, the Sun has an apparent visual magnitude of about -27, while the full Moon ranks between -13 and -12. The ISS is consistently the brightest artificial object at -6, while Venus peaks at around -5.

When and if Mayak is launched, it will shine with an apparent magnitude of -10, which would make it second only to the Moon as the brightest object in the night sky. Appropriately enough, the name “Mayak” is Russian for “lighthouse.””

Are people around the world going to see this? Could we possibly see a new object in the sky, brighter than the brightest planet? How are we to know this object is in fact a small Russian satellite with thickness a fraction of  the width of a human hair?

In any situation where a government or entity expects people to believe them without evidence, people should be weary. Perhaps people should investigate this further and find out what it is actually alleged to do, and how many people are supposed to see it.

And of course there are people who would ask, could this be a natural phenomena or some other body in space arriving, disguised as a satellite? It’s far out, but it just might be within the realm of probability in coming years.

(Image credit: Daily Mail)