An amateur photographer captured a broken satellite over Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.
AMS/Suzanne H.
A defunct Chinese-made Earth-imaging satellite turned into a bright fireball as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere Saturday night, with some of its debris landing on the ground in Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas or surrounding states. It is possible that it did.
The sight was widely mistaken for a meteor, but scientists believe it was actually GaoJing 1-02, one of a constellation of four satellites launched into low Earth orbit from China in 2016. (Superview 1-02) was confirmed.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and leading orbit monitor, said the spacecraft likely began its tumultuous return to Earth over New Orleans and disintegrated as it headed north.
From China to the south and into space
NASA scientist Mark Freese, who is working on using publicly available data to pinpoint the location of the meteorite fall, said the fireball was heading straight over Jackson, Mississippi, and moving toward Arkansas and Missouri. , noted that at least four weather radars picked up the falling debris.
Debris fields from objects entering the atmosphere from space can be very long and wide, as they travel at thousands of miles per hour. Friction caused by shock and drag from the relatively dense atmosphere generates intense heat that burns the satellite.
McDowell noted that because GaoJing 1-02 is relatively small for a satellite, it could have completely burned up in midair without reaching the ground. So far, there have been no reports of any debris being recovered, but it could be very small and difficult to identify as part of the satellite.
The American Meteor Society has received at least 120 reports of fireballs produced by incinerating satellites.
McDowell said GaoJing 1-02 was shut down nearly two years ago. Around that time, it began its steep descent towards its final demise, the atmosphere and then the Earth’s surface.
Re-entry of satellites, especially small spacecraft that spend all their time in space in low-Earth orbit, is very common today. I am not aware of any cases where such objects have reached the ground and caused damage.
The same cannot be said for larger, heavier objects, such as large spent rocket bodies. Still, most space debris tends to fall into the ocean, so even in these cases damage is fairly rare.
(AI Transparency Disclosure: I first learned about this incident from astronomer Jonathan McDowell, but I told Perplexity Pro that the I asked the AI to compile recent information about satellite re-entry, which is one of the many sources I used to report the above.
