Vigil 360’s monitoring of global technological developments revealed that Russia is set to launch potentially the brightest artificial object in the night sky, which could outshine everything except for the Moon, July 14, 2017. The development which was monitored on Fox News online has it that ‘star’ dubbed Mayak, a Russian CubeSat (a type of miniaturized satellite) will be fitted with solar reflectors and launched into space.
According to experts, if the miniature satellite is launched, it could have an apparent magnitude of -10. New Atlas reports whereas the Moon ranks between -13 and -12. Celestial bodies are measured based on their brightness, with the brightest objects receiving the lowest scores. For comparison, the Sun has an apparent magnitude of -27
The CubeSat would be brighter than other objects in the sky, such as the International Space Station or Venus, which have apparent magnitude scores of -6 and -5, respectively.
The small satellite was designed by students from Moscow Polytechnic and weighs less than 8 pounds, composed of only a power source, control system and the solar reflectors.
The project has raised more than $30,000 on Russian crowd-funding site Boomstarter, similar to the U.S.'s Kickstarter.
With the project, the students want to show that space can be accessible to small scientific teams for little cost. In addition, the students plan to test an aerodynamic braking device at the end of the CubeSat's run, which will also ultimately be sent off into deep space.
Mayak is set to launch on a Soyuz-2.1, a rocket on July 14. When launched, it would be visible in the Europe, as well as other parts of the world.
