The exact time and location of the Humanity Star’s reentry on Thursday is difficult to predict, but it will become clearer as the satellite loses altitude in the next coming days. SatView currently predicts the satellite will come down somewhere over the South Pacific Ocean.

Rocket Lab didn’t publicize the Humanity Star until after it launched. The purpose of the satellite, the company said, was to promote interest in the wonders of outer space. “No matter where you are in the world, rich or in poverty, in conflict or at peace, everyone will be able to see the bright, blinking Humanity Star orbiting Earth in the night sky,” Beck wrote on its website. “My hope is that everyone looking up at the Humanity Star will look past it to the expanse of the universe, feel a connection to our place in it and think a little differently about their lives, actions and what is important.”

The reaction to the launch was controversial. Some astronomers were pretty angry, describing the Humanity Star as nothing more than a piece of shiny space junk, a billboard in an already crowded place. There are already thousands of satellites in orbit around Earth, some operational and some defunct, and to add one without a scientific purpose amounted to pollution, they argued.

“It’s hogging some of that precious resource, the dark night sky, polluting part of the last great wilderness,” Caleb Scharf, the director of the Columbia Astrobiology Center, wrote in a post on Scientific American. “Most of us would not think it cute if I stuck a big flashing strobe-light on a polar bear, or emblazoned my company slogan across the perilous upper reaches of Everest. Jamming a brilliantly glinting sphere into the heavens feels similarly abusive.”

Some astronomers warned the bright object could disrupt astronomical observations of both ground- and space-based telescopes.

For no reason at all, here’s what it looks like when a satellite goes through Hubble’s field of view whilst you are trying to image something in the distant solar system. pic.twitter.com/eLWR1ncdqx — Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) January 25, 2018

To this criticism, Rocket Lab responded, “the Humanity Star will blink across the sky for just a seconds [sic], and it won’t be visible in your region for the full 9 months in orbit. Our hope is that it draws people’s attention to the stars, then leaves them looking to the universe long after The Humanity Star has passed.”

Other astronomers were less peeved. They recognized that the effort was short-lived and, thanks in part to news reports over the controversy, it really would pique the public’s interest.

“I’m not a fan, but I’m not as horrified by it as some people are,” McDowell said. “The worry is that if you launched a lot of things just to be bright, that’ll disrupt astronomy. But the occasional one in a low orbit, that you don’t see most of the night—this one wasn’t such a big deal. I don’t think it was a great thing to do, but it wasn’t a terrible thing to do.”