The light spectacle was caused by the return of the second stage of the rocket “down” after 22 days in orbit. On March 4, SpaceX launched a batch of about 60 Starlink satellites with it for future Internet connections.
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Spontaneously into the atmosphere
“After the end of active activity, the upper stage failed to ignite (slow down) and bring it back to the atmosphere, where it was to disappear,” cosmonautics popularizer Milan Halousek, chairman of the Astronautical Section of the Czech Astronomical Society, explained to Novinky.
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“Thus, the stage remained in low orbit for three weeks, and only now did it enter the upper atmosphere spontaneously, where it created an interesting spectacle,” he described.
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According to him, it will definitely not be the case that only now would the technicians manage to revive the engine and slow down the gear.
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“Surely no one solved it, it was clear that quite soon it would enter the atmosphere spontaneously anyway,” he remarked.
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The car would be faster
According to Forbes magazine, astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics revealed that it was most likely the burning remnants of a rocket stage.
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“The second stage of the Falcon has failed to ignite orbit since March 4 and is now returning to orbit after 22 days,” McDowell said on his Twitter – of course not to mean a controlled return with landing, but a return to the atmosphere where the camera itself discard. According to him, it was a roughly three-ton section measuring 7 x 3.6 meters.
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The Falcon 9 second stage from the Mar 4 Starlink launch failed to make a deorbit burn and is now reentering after 22 days in orbit. Its reentry was observed from the Seattle area at about 0400 UTC Mar 26. pic.twitter.com/FQrBrUoBHh
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) March 26, 2021
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The National Weather Service in Seattle supported the astrophysicist’s conclusion, saying that if it were, for example, a bolide (a very bright meteor), it would move much faster in our atmosphere. She added that the fall of some unburned fragments has not been reported in the region yet.
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“At low orbits, all bodies are intensively braked by contact with the remnants of the atmosphere (at the molecular level), which slows them down and thus reduces their trajectory. Eventually, they slow down so that they ‘fall’ into the upper part of the atmosphere, where they burn. So it was definitely a spontaneous entry into the atmosphere, “he added in conclusion for Novinky Halousek.
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