A bright fireball was observed in the sky over four US states, which began to crumble into pieces as it moved south. It was SpaceX’s Starlink communications satellite that returned to the Earth’s atmosphere.
Image source: youtube.com/@jsauerii
The object was observed by dozens of eyewitnesses last Saturday evening – reports began to arrive on November 9 after 22:00 Central Standard Time (November 10 after 7:00 Moscow time). The American Meteor Society recorded 36 calls from residents of Colorado, Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma, with the most messages coming from Oklahoma City and the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
Image source: x.com/planet4589
This, however, was not a meteor, astronomers are sure, but the Starlink-4682 communications satellite owned by SpaceX, which was launched into orbit in a group of 54 devices as part of the Starlink 4-23 mission in 2022. Eyewitnesses spoke with admiration about this spectacle on social networks; As it moved south, the object began to fall apart – this was reported, in particular, in Texas.
Given that there are now more than 7,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, and SpaceX adds to their constellation weekly, the vehicles re-enter the atmosphere every day, sometimes several at a time. There is an opinion that this could harm the atmosphere: when burned in it, the devices emit aluminum oxide, which can damage the ozone layer and change its ability to reflect sunlight – the consequences may appear in the next ten years.