Arizona Sky Joi (2024)

FAQs

What is the straight line of lights in the Arizona sky? ›

If what you saw was a row of lights, or the lights were all in one line, moving in unison, odds are you saw the satellite array called Starlink, which is operated by SpaceX. You can see what it looks like in the video player above and in some of the ones below. There's an easy way to find out if you saw Starlink.

Arizona Sky is a 2008 independent gay-themed romantic drama that was written, directed, and produced by Jeff London.

"Arizona has been a preferred location for astronomers—professional and amateurs—since the early 1900s," says Mike Weasner, an astrophysicist who helped Oracle State Park earn dark-sky status. "It's due to generally good weather and the mountains to get above the thicker portion of the atmosphere."

The source of these lights is Starlink satellites being launched in groups, and they travel in a line – a Starlink train - until they reach their operating altitude before separating. These satellites provide internet coverage across the globe, and in most remote locations that standard Wi-Fi does not typically reach.

The satellites can appear as a string of pearls or a "train" of bright lights moving across the night sky. Starlink satellites are easier to see a day or two after their launch and deployment then become progressively harder to spot as they climb to their final orbital height of around 342 miles (550 km).

Sonoran Desert skies are such a deep blue (to human eyes) because desert air is unusually pure, that is, compared to the air above many other places on the planet; it's relatively free of the tiny floating particles and droplets called aerosols.

Arizona has long fought against "light pollution" - city glare that obscures the night sky. The Dark Skies Movement is headquartered in Tucson, and Flagstaff, Sedona, the Village of Oak Creek, Camp Verde, and the Kaibab Paiute Indian Reservation are all officially designated dark sky regions.

Discovered in 1891, its age has been variously estimated at between 5,000 and 50,000 years. Large numbers of nickel–iron fragments from gravel size to 1,400 pounds (640 kg) have been found in a 100-square-mile (260-square-kilometre) area.

The elegant trogon, gray hawk, buff-collared nightjar, and thick-billed parrot are just a small sample of the birds found in the Sky Islands. Jaguars, coatis, and other unique, tropically-oriented mammals call the Sky Islands home.

The Town of Fountain Hills, Arizona, U.S., has been awarded International Dark Sky Community status, one of only two International Dark Sky Communities located near major metropolitan areas.

Can you see the Milky Way in Arizona? ›

This prestigious designation recognizes Oracle State Park as an exceptional place to view and contemplate the wonders of our night sky. Oracle is far enough away from most light pollution sources making the Milky Way visible, along with many other celestial objects.

The lines are called contrails, short for condensation trails, and they appear when water vapor condenses and freezes around the exhaust from an aircraft, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. At least that's what science says.

These clouds are contrails, short for condensation trails. Water vapor is one of the byproducts of jet fuel combustion and will turn into ice crystals in the cold air at the high elevations where jet airplanes fly. Those ice crystals create a cloud (the contrail), which does not pose any public health risk.

If you ever see similar lights moving in a straight line across the sky, it's likely that you're witnessing a satellite train.

The Phoenix Lights (sometimes called the "Lights Over Phoenix") were a series of widely sighted unidentified flying objects observed in the skies over the southwestern U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada on March 13, 1997. A drawing that appeared in USA Today.