Not a meteor shower, but very similar
Yesterday evening, stargazers in Oregon and Washington witnessed an unusual phenomenon, similar to a “leisurely” meteor shower. Apparently, these were the remnants of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, burning up during flight in the atmosphere.
SpaceX rocket wreckage puts on fantastic light show in the sky
SpaceX itself has not yet claimed responsibility for the spectacle, but numerous meteorologists and astronomers have already identified the lights in the sky as harmless rocket debris. In this thread on the social network Twitter, you can enjoy numerous examples of this spectacle.
University of Washington astronomer James Davenport told NBC’s KING5:
We had a really good show today thanks to SpaceX. This was the top, what we call the second stage, of the Falcon 9. It actually launched about three weeks ago and did exactly what it had to do: put the satellites into orbit. The only failure was that the stage did not complete its descent from orbit and subsequent combustion, so it did not fall when and where we expected it. It just delayed the fall for the last three weeks, and we were lucky and it flew overhead. ”
Unlike the reusable first stage of the Falcon 9, which returns to Earth, the second stage usually remains in orbit, where it will gradually collapse, or is redirected into the atmosphere, where it burns up.
