The brightest satellites tonight — what did you just see?
A steady, non-blinking light gliding across the stars is almost always a satellite. Here's what you most likely saw, brightest first — and how to confirm it on the live sky view.
1. The International Space Station
By far the brightest — often outshining Venus. A football-field-sized station crossing the whole sky in ~5 minutes, west to east. Track the ISS live or check tonight's pass times for your city.
2. A Starlink train
A line of evenly spaced lights means a freshly launched Starlink batch. Everything about the Starlink train — when it's visible and why it fades after a few weeks.
3. Tiangong — China's space station
Nearly as bright as the ISS on a good pass. Track Tiangong live.
4. Hubble, and everything else
The Hubble Space Telescope, bright Iridium-class satellites, and thousands of fainter dots — all visible on the 3D map, which shows exactly which satellite is over you at any moment.
Identify it — and catch the next one
- Blinking light? That's an aircraft, not a satellite. Satellites shine steadily.
- Suddenly vanished mid-sky? Classic satellite behavior — it flew into Earth's shadow.
- Want a heads-up next time? Enable free pass alerts and Cosmik notifies you ~10 minutes before anything bright flies over.
- New to this? Read how to track satellites live.