A line of bright lights in the sky caused something of a stir last night, with many people taking to social to media to question what they were.

"Does anyone know why there’s lots of lights travelling eastwards in the sky tonight?" asked one person, with some suggesting meteor showers.

In fact the uniform line of lights, which appeared brighter that most stars and indeed even the planet Venus, which is particularly visible at the moment, were the the Starlink satellites.

They have been designed by American entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX company, which is working to provide satellite internet access to make it available everywhere on the planet.

Currently there are 362 satellites in space for this purpose, although the ultimate aim is reportedly to have 42,000 satellites.

Last night's first sighting was just before 9.25pm.

Tonight the satellites will be back again, at a slightly later time of 9.58pm and again at around 3.30am tomorrow.

Provided the sky is clear they should be visible for around six minutes, heading first west to east and then southeast to east.

They will then be back twice tomorrow evening, at 8.58pm and 10.34pm.