Saturday 27 March 2021

Suspected meteor or attack
Flashing beam over Seattle causes stir

Above the northwestern United States, there is a blazing rain of shining objects in the sky. The origin of the incident is a surprise in social networks. An expert can explain the phenomenon: behind it is SpaceX, the space travel company of American billionaire Elon Musk.

Mysterious, meteor-like objects in the sky baffle and amaze the Northwest of America, from Portland to Seattle. While some people suspected a meteor late Thursday evening, the SpaceX Company’s Falcon 9 rocket contained fire debris. This was reported by the local television station “Katu”, which is associated with the American broadcaster ABC.

Astronomer Jonathan McDowell said the second phase of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s company’s rocket did not burn as planned. The SpaceX rocket was launched at the beginning of the month, and the fallen space debris orbited the globe for 22 days.

According to a Harvard University researcher, space junk was supposed to re-enter the atmosphere soon after take-off – SpaceX did not explain why it did not happen. Experts noted re-entry, but the calculation is not so easy due to the high speed.

McDowell said, “We knew it was going to happen, but we couldn’t predict that it would be Seattle. This is the main reason for people’s astonishment.” Due to a speed of around 27,000 kilometers per hour, the space projectile can easily land on the other end of the world if experts make only a slight lapse. The astronomer stated that such re-entries are not uncommon. “Something similar happens once a week somewhere in the world.”

However, for the people of Oregon and Washington, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, as many staggering Twitter posts testify to this. One user wrote, “I’ve never seen anything so incredible in my life.”