Fireballs streaking across the sky spark epic hunt for space garbage
Monday, April 26th 2021, 11:47 am - A meteorite hunter turned space junk collector says there’s nothing more exciting than tracking flaming objects.
Fireballs streaking across the sky in late March set off an epic hunt for the space junk that hit Earth with a boom in one case metres from a Washington state trailer home with an older couple inside.
The fiery re-entry of the remains of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into Earth s atmosphere on March 25 created a light show that was captured on video by people from Oregon to British Columbia.
Fireballs streaking across the sky spark epic hunt for space garbage
The fiery re-entry of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into the Earth s atmosphere created a bright spectacle on March 25, sending a trio of meteorite detectives on a hunt for the debris.
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After fireballs streaked across sky, space-junk sleuths got busy and hit the jackpot in Washington By Dominic Gates, , The Seattle Times (TNS),
Published: April 22, 2021, 8:25pm
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People across the Pacific Northwest were awed on the evening of March 25 by an otherworldly formation of fireballs that streaked across the heavens, causing a social media sensation. Astronomers promptly demystified it as debris from a falling SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Though such wayward rockets generally burn up in the atmosphere, this time substantial chunks fell to earth in Eastern Washington. At least one came uncomfortably close to hitting people.
Yet neither SpaceX nor the various federal agencies with some role in tracking space junk the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA, and the U.S. Space Force investigated what happened on the ground.
After fireballs streaked across sky, space-junk sleuths got busy and hit the jackpot in Washington [The Seattle Times]
Apr. 22 People across the Pacific Northwest were awed on the evening of March 25 by an otherworldly formation of fireballs that streaked across the heavens, causing a social media sensation. Astronomers promptly demystified it as debris from a falling SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Though such wayward rockets generally burn up in the atmosphere, this time substantial chunks fell to earth in Eastern Washington. At least one came uncomfortably close to hitting people.
Yet neither SpaceX nor the various federal agencies with some role in tracking space junk the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA, and the U.S. Space Force investigated what happened on the ground.
The efforts have sparked the creation of an app that collects eyewitness reports and triangulates their location data, paired with an expert analysis of the data from the area’s relevant weather radars.<br/>