On Tuesday evening, many people from Baden-Württemberg posted videos of a rare event on social networks. Officials have now confirmed what happened.
Numerous people in many parts of Baden-Württemberg witnessed a spectacular phenomenon in the sky on Tuesday evening: In numerous Videos on social networks It was visible. Some speculated that it could be a shooting star. Early on Wednesday morning, the Bonn-based Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BKK) announced that it was a satellite.
Calls to the police about fire certificate
On Tuesday evening, the police in various cities in Baden-Württemberg received calls from citizens who had seen a fiery glow in the sky. The police headquarters in Ravensburg, Konstanz and Stuttgart received calls of this kind, according to their spokespersons.
What is a Starlink satellite?
The so-called Starlink satellite entered the Earth’s atmosphere visibly from southern Germany over Switzerland. The Bundeswehr’s Space Situation Center passed this information on to the BBK, a spokeswoman for the Federal Office told the German Press Agency. Starlink satellites belong to Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX. They are designed to make fast internet available everywhere and fly at an altitude of around 500 kilometers. According to the company SpaceX, crashed Starlink satellites do not pose a threat to public safety. “So far, no debris has been reported after the Starlink satellites were successfully removed from orbit,” the company said in a statement a month ago.
Fireball in the sky, guessing games on the internet
The observatory in Stuttgart was previously at a loss as to how the fiery glow could have occurred. In response to a query from SWR, the observatory said that the phenomenon was probably too slow to be a shooting star or a meteorite. They were very surprised by the event. It could possibly have been space debris, but this is nothing more than a guess.
The flying object was seen not only in Baden-Württemberg, but also in other parts of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The president of the Astronomical Society of Zurich Unterland suspected that it was falling space debris due to the slow speed and the type of fragmentation, as he told the Swiss “View” said.
Late Tuesday evening, several users via X suspected that it could have been a burning Starlink satellite. The weather service “Meteo Express” confirmed this. British-American astronomer and astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell also posted a corresponding note with a map of the re-entry of “Starlink-2382” on X.
Space debris burns up when it enters the atmosphere
According to information from the US space agency NASA, failed satellites or other space debris at an altitude of less than 600 kilometers fall back to Earth within a few years. Most of them burn up when they re-enter the atmosphere – that could have been the case here.
