It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, are they – parts of a SpaceX rocket?
The unidentified fallen objects that lit up the night sky from Oregon to Canada on Thursday appear to be the wreckage of Falcon 9 since its launch three weeks ago.
The Northwest Pacific Skygazers noticed bright streaks of light raining slowly overhead, just before 21:00 local time, and at midnight ET on Thursday. Some posted photos and videos of the celestial spectacle, wondering if it was a meteor shower or worrying if it was something more sinister, such as a plane crash.
So what was it?
The unofficial explanation from astronomers and meteorologists is that there was harmless rocket debris. SpaceX, which was founded by Tesla TSLA,
CEO Elon Musk launched a Falcon 9 rocket in Florida just over three weeks ago to carry 60 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. It seems that the upper end of the rocket or the second stage – which should re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn in an orbit or two since launch – has not completed its orbital burning as expected.
“I can’t wait for it to fall in the last three weeks, and I was lucky and it turned upside down,” University of Washington astronomer James Davenport told local NBC affiliate KINGS.
Also, astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics identified it as debris from the Falcon 9 rocket. , noting that “his re-entry was observed from the Seattle area.”
This led many followers to share their own images of the unexpected light show. a thread growing under his post. Many described it as “amazing”, although some expressed early concern that it was a more serious incident, such as the explosion of a plane.
The Seattle National Weather Service has also identified the debris as likely from the Falcon 9 second-stage rocket, insuring followers on Twitter that “at this time there are no expected effects on the land in our region.”
See more amazing videos below.
SpaceX did not take responsibility for the unexpected light show, and representatives of NASA’s SpaceX media relations department were not immediately available for comment.