Flashes, thunder and "falling stars". What happened in the Polish sky?
First, a spectacular flight of an extremely bright meteor, and later a "shower of falling stars" could be seen in the night sky over Poland. These are two different events, of which only the second is the fault of a human - and a very famous one at that, namely Elon Musk. His rocket burned up in the atmosphere, and Karol Wójcicki assures us that because of this "nothing will fall on our heads".
Early on Wednesday morning, residents of the western part of the country could observe an unusual phenomenon in the sky , which - as Karol Wójcicki , the creator of the blog "Z głowy w gwiazdach" explained on Polsat News - was the result of the Falcon-9 rocket burning in the atmosphere, or more precisely, its second stage.
On February 1, it was launched by Elon Musk's company - SpaceX, and it happened at the Vandenberg base in the US California . - It was then carrying Starlink satellites and after 19 days it completed its mission - explained the astronomy popularizer.
What Was In The Sky At Night? Musk's Falcon Rocket Burned Up In The AtmosphereAs Wójcicki emphasized, the stripes and flashes are the result of a standard procedure, the aim of which is to remove unnecessary parts of the rocket from orbit. - The object disintegrates, sometimes many thousands of small elements fall apart, which, under the influence of a huge temperature, even several thousand degrees Celsius , burn up in such a spectacular shower of falling stars - he explained.
A bright, burning object flew over Poland. It is almost certainly debris from the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket, which was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and carried 22 Starlink satellites from the 11-4 group into orbit.
Author of the recording: Marcin Gmerek pic.twitter.com/OSsEwyv4Cs
However, as he pointed out, it is a rare situation for the whole phenomenon to be visible in Poland, because for safety reasons such objects are usually burned over seas and oceans . This time it happened over Europe.
- It happens from time to time, especially when the second engine stops working for some reason, or for example it has run out of fuel to complete the process - the expert explained in an interview with Karolina Soczewka .
Object near Poznań. Missile debris fell on Poland?When asked whether debris suspended in the atmosphere could pose a threat, the Polsat News guest replied: - I won't lie, it happened that not all of them burned up completely in the atmosphere and some of them reached the Earth.
As an example, he pointed to the situation in March 2021, when a massive fuel tank fell on a farm in Washington state. "It didn't hurt anyone, but that's why we strive to burn these types of rockets over seas and oceans, because there is a small risk that something will survive through the atmosphere," he said.
SEE: Unique Meteorite Recording. Successful for the First Time in History
Wójciki stressed, however, that Poles should not worry about the falling rocket debris. - For now, there is no information that anything fell from the sky onto anyone's head. The debris flew over Poland, then headed for Ukraine , so if anything were to fall onto anyone, I'd guess it would be our eastern neighbors - he pointed out.
About an hour after this conversation, however, it turned out that an object that could have belonged to a Falcon rocket had been discovered near Poznań . We wrote more about it here .
Fireball over Warsaw. A bright object crossed the sky. Did it fall near Lublin?As the specialist emphasized, we saw an impressive flight over Poland at an altitude of several dozen kilometers. However, this is not the only unusual thing we have seen in the sky in recent hours. On Tuesday around 6:00 p.m., a bolide , an extremely bright meteor , crossed the sky over central and eastern Poland.
Residents of Warsaw reported that a bright object flew past, leaving a greenish trail behind it. Some also saw a "fireball" and heard loud thunder. The object was observed by the Skytinel fireball network, which posted a still frame of the celestial body's flight online.
Researchers are currently analyzing the recordings to determine where the meteor may have landed . Scientists do not rule out that some of the debris may be in the area between Lublin and Chełm .
Read more
polsatnews
