The fireball that hundreds of people recorded in the skies above Spain on Sunday night is still making headlines.
While experts initially suggested it was debris from a Chinese rocket, new research has ruled that theory out.
Renowned astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell has calculated that what lit up the skies over regions like Andalucia was the atmospheric re-entry of Starlink satellite 30199, owned by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX.
The artificial satellite had been launched two years earlier, on July 10, 2023, from California.
According to McDowell, the satellite re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at 11.45pm on August 10, breaking apart over Spain in full view of observers across Andalucia, eastern Spain and the Balearics.
The space debris hit the atmosphere at a staggering 29,000 km/h.
Friction with the air at that speed caused it to shatter into multiple incandescent fragments, some producing visible flares, which were seen in the countless videos filmed that night.
The artificial fireball began at an altitude of around 118km over the Atlantic Ocean and traveled northeast, passing over Andalucia, Murcia, and southern Alicante toward the Balearic Islands.
In total, it covered roughly 900km before completely disintegrating.
This rules out the earlier theory that it was the fourth stage of China’s Jielong-3 rocket.
Read more Andalucia news at the Spanish Eye.
