The Day the Sun Knocked 38 Satellites Out of the Sky

Episode 10  ·  How the Sun brings satellites down: the 38 Starlinks of February 2022, Skylab, and today's busy Sun  ·  all sources

On 3 February 2022, 49 new Starlink satellites were released into a low orbit about 210 km up. Within days, 38 of them had fallen back and burned up. The cause was a minor-to-moderate storm on the Sun. This film explains how the Sun reaches satellites from 150 million km away: its light and its storms heat the top of the atmosphere, the air swells upward, and the extra drag pulls satellites down. It also follows Skylab's early fall in 1979 and the solar maximum announced in October 2024.

This is a fully animated film. Every visual was drawn for ColdProvenance; no footage, photographs or recordings are used. Narration is a synthesized voice. The music and sound effects were created for this film. Every factual claim is sourced below.

Sources

• SpaceX's update on the Starlink Group 4-7 launch, as reported by Space.com and SpaceNews (February 2022): the 49 satellites, the low release, drag up to 50% higher than on earlier launches, the edge-on safe mode, the losses
• NOAA — Space Weather Environment During the SpaceX Starlink Satellite Loss in February 2022 and Baruah et al., Space Weather (2022–2024): a minor-to-moderate storm; the low release and the satellites' low mass for their size; density changes near 210 km
• Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate — Unexpected space weather causing the reentry of 38 Starlink satellites in February 2022 (2022): the density increase at the satellites' height
• PITHIA-NRF — The thermosphere and satellite drag: extreme ultraviolet heating, expansion of the upper atmosphere, storm heating at high latitudes, the drag spiral
• NASA — 40 Years Ago: Skylab Reenters Earth's Atmosphere (2019): the 1974 boost, the hope of a Shuttle visit, the active solar cycle, the July 1979 re-entry over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia
• NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center — Joint Solar Maximum Announcement from NASA and NOAA (October 2024): the 11-year cycle and the solar maximum period
• May 2024 storm: Satellite Drag Analysis During the May 2024 Gannon Geomagnetic Storm and Loss of 12 Starlink satellites (arXiv, 2024); NASA Earth Observatory, Historic Geomagnetic Storm Dazzles: the strongest storm since 2003, three to five times the usual drag, the mass manoeuvre
• Oliveira et al. — Tracking reentries of Starlink satellites during the rising phase of solar cycle 25, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences (2025): 523 re-entries, faster decay in strong storms, lifetimes cut by about 10–12 days in the worst cases
• EarthSky — 1 to 2 Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day (October 2025), quoting astronomer Jonathan McDowell
• Phys.org — Space junk falls to Earth faster when sunspots peak (April 2026): faster debris decay at high solar activity
• NOAA, NASA and USAF — U.S. Standard Atmosphere, 1976: air density at about 200 km compared with sea level

Visuals

• All animation, spacecraft, the Sun, Earth, the control room and diagrams were created by ColdProvenance for this film. No footage or photographs appear in this film.
• The controllers and the girl in the park are illustrative characters, not portraits. Jonathan McDowell is shown by name only.
• Sizes and distances are not to scale where marked. The drag gauges, the air particles and the boxes of air are schematic; their numbers are the sourced figures.
• Coastlines: Natural Earth Public domain, via world-atlas. Character parts: Kenney Monster Builder Pack (CC0) and Kitbitz props (CC0).

Audio

• Narration: synthesized voice.
• Music, ambience and sound effects: created for this film. No stock music, sound libraries or field recordings are used.