{"id":17616,"date":"2026-11-13T11:12:26","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T18:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=17616"},"modified":"2026-11-04T11:18:26","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T18:18:26","slug":"sunlight-at-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=17616","title":{"rendered":"Sunlight at night"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Residents near the town of Lone Pine in the Sierra Nevada region saw light at night. It wasn&#8217;t UFOs, it was a test conducted by a US startup called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reflectorbital.com\/\">Reflect Orbital<\/a>, which wants to launch 50,000 satellites with reflective mirrors into space in the next decade to illuminate parts of the world at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"430\" data-attachment-id=\"17617\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?attachment_id=17617\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2026\/11\/image-3.png?fit=782%2C526&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"782,526\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-title=\"image\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2026\/11\/image-3.png?fit=640%2C430&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2026\/11\/image-3.png?resize=640%2C430&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17617\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2026\/11\/image-3.png?w=782&amp;ssl=1 782w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2026\/11\/image-3.png?resize=401%2C270&amp;ssl=1 401w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2026\/11\/image-3.png?resize=300%2C202&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mattfife.com\/wp-content\/themes\/mattTheme\/headerimgs\/2026\/11\/image-3.png?resize=768%2C517&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/oct\/26\/california-sunlight-space-mirrors-satellites#img-2\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/oct\/26\/california-sunlight-space-mirrors-satellites#img-2\">demonstration showcased what this would look like on the ground<\/a>, to the bewilderment of locals, one of whom <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/outdoors\/article\/reflect-orbital-light-mt-whitney-22475517.php?\">called<\/a> the lights \u201cblinding\u201d. Large mobile lights were erected near Mount Whitney, with Reflect Orbital comparing the radiance to that of a full moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s obviously raising all kinds of environmental, social, and defense concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it&#8217;s not like this wasn&#8217;t tried before&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ujWnpB5Wm5E?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Residents near the town of Lone Pine in the Sierra Nevada region saw light at night. It wasn&#8217;t UFOs, it was a test conducted by a US startup called Reflect Orbital, which wants to launch 50,000 satellites with reflective mirrors into space in the next decade to illuminate parts of the world at night. The demonstration showcased what this would look like on the ground, to the bewilderment of locals, one of whom called the lights \u201cblinding\u201d. Large mobile lights&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=17616\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cool"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4WECr-4A8","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17616"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17689,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17616\/revisions\/17689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}