25 thousand. And 90% of them are inactive. We are being orbited by junk. Fantastic.
I have never seen the ISS passing by, though some people I know are addicted to it. They wait for any opportunity to see a passing bright dot. It doesn’t sound amazing. Especially getting up at 4 at night and staring at the sky to witness a 10 second fly-by which looks like a passing plane. Although I found out something that sounds pretty cool – iridium flares.
I thought they were just some flares associated with solar activity or something, but it turns out they are flares caused by sunlight being reflected from various plates on satellites. And they are up to magnitude -9.5. That is as bright as a half moon.
Now I remember seeing one. I naively believed I saw a meteor during daytime, but it is more likely to have been a satellite flare. They apparently predict those at http://www.heavens-above.com/
