SpaceX Falcon 9 Re-Entry Debris Spark Spectacular Light Show Over Pacific Northwest
If you are in or around Washington State, did you happen to see what looked like a meteor shower around 9 PM ET last night? If so, what you saw was not actually a meteor shower but a SpaceX Falcon 9 second stage burning up in the atmosphere. Wild, right?
Late last night, many people in the pacific northwest were tweeting that they had caught a meteor shower on camera. Many of these tweets, such as @vincelavecchia’s below, include a video of the event, which looks absolutely stunning.
After the hullaballoo began, National Weather Service Seattle took to Twitter to dispel the thoughts of it being a meteor shower. The belief was that it was actually “debris from a Falcon 9 rocket 2nd stage that did not successfully have a deorbit burn” from March 4th. According to astronomer Jonathan McDowell, this seemed to coincide with the track of the rocket-turned-satellite over the Washington area.Ummm... just caught this flying over my home in SW Portland. pic.twitter.com/CvQJwvWsyj
— Vince LaVecchia (@vincelavecchia) March 26, 2021