If you live in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, you may have seen a strange meteor floating across the sky Thursday night (March 25). But that wasn’t a lump of asteroid or comet – SpaceX debris was likely to fall and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, experts say.
On March 4, SpaceX launched a batch of 60 Starlink internet satellites to orbit aboard a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket. Experts believe it was the high-level reentry of that rocket that caused last night’s sky display, which dotted the skies with brightly colored dots that moved across the sky. Local reports revolved around the incident at just after midnight EDT (0400 GMT) on Friday (March 26), or around 9pm local time Thursday on the west coast of the US.
“While we await further confirmation of the details, this is the unofficial information we have so far. The most widely reported items in the air were the debris from a rocket. Falcon 9 level 2 failed deorbit firing, ”the Seattle National Weather Service (NWS) tweet. They added in a follow-up tweet “no impact on the land in our area is expected at this time.”
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Some people have enthusiastically shared on social media videos and photos of the event, referring to the falling debris as a meteor shower, a “burning star” or a comet. Some have even cited out-of-country activity as the reason, although experts have not confirmed that potential.
I’ve never seen a shower like this! Freaky when you don’t know what it is 😲😬 @ fox12oregon @KATUNews pic.twitter.com/RwMGSf2IRjMarch 26, 2021
Instead, experts agree that this event was created almost by fallen human debris.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and satellite controller at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, concluded that the bright spots seen are falling off SpaceX debris.
The second phase Falcon 9 since the launch of Mar 4 Starlink failed deorbit firing and is now reappearing after 22 days in orbit. His reentry was watched from the Seattle area at around 0400 UTC Mar 26. pic.twitter.com/FQrBrUoBHhMarch 26, 2021
“The second Falcon 9 stage failed since the launch of Mar 4 Starlink deorbit firing and is now re-entering after 22 days in orbit,” McDowell tweet. Deorbit firing occurs when a spaceship fires at its thrushes to slow down and begin to descend towards turmoil in the Earth ‘s atmosphere.
The goal of such a firing is to quickly get rid of a piece of space hardware when the work is done, to keep it from becoming orbital debris.
McDowell also shared some “fun facts” about burning debris like this on Twitter, adding that debris breaches as we saw last night occur about 40 miles (60 kilometers) above the ground, far above where planes fly.
He also noted that this is the 14th piece of space debris with a mass above one tonne to reveal the Earth ‘s feel so far this year, which equates to about one large piece of space debris being fall every week.
Another fun debris fact: this is the 14th piece of space debris with a mass above one tonne that has reappeared since January 1 this year.March 26, 2021
The NWS in Seattle said on Twitter that this incident appears to have been caused by the firing of human objects in Earth’s atmosphere, as meteors or other natural objects would appear to move much faster.
While human objects often orbit the Earth at speeds of around 17,500 mph (28,163 km / h), meteors can reach distances at the top of our atmosphere over 45,000 mph (72,420 km / h), according to NWS Seattle.
Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.