Wednesday, February 19
Burning debris from detonated rocket lights up Berlin sky
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the skies above Berlin were illuminated by glowing objects with long, burning tails plummeting to Earth in a great orange-and-white scratch of fire. The spectacle, widely shared on social media, appears to have been the “uncontrolled” reentry of a detonated Falcon 9 R/B rocket into the atmosphere.
The debris passed over Berlin at an altitude of 90 to 100 kilometers, with most of the space junk expected to end up in the Pacific Ocean. It is unlikely that any landed in Germany.
Although the reentry was officially termed “uncontrolled,” this is somewhat misleading. The time and location of the reentry were known in advance, but since the debris originated from the deliberate detonation of a satellite, it is classified as “uncontrolled.”
The debris came from a rocket launched by Starlink, the U.S. company founded by billionaire Elon Musk. The exact number of satellites currently orbiting Earth is unknown, and no international agreements exist to track or regulate such objects. However, the growing number of space junk in near-Earth orbit is becoming a concern, with Starlink being the primary contributor. The company is estimated to be responsible for half of all satellites in orbit, and one deactivated satellite is believed to reenter Earth’s atmosphere almost every day.
