Footage has been made of a Starlink satellite being blown apart by a geomagnetic storm. Check out the images here.
SpaceX sometimes loses satellites. Sometimes a launch goes wrong, sometimes they get hit by space junk. This time, a geomagnetic storm is the culprit. This one makes mincemeat from the Starlink satellites.
Starlink satellite explodes
A camera in Añasco, Puerto Rico, captured the footage around 2:40 a.m. AST (1:40 a.m. EST) on the morning of Feb. 7. The camera is part of a network operated by Sociedad de Astronomia del Caribe (SAC). This is a non-profit organization made up of professionals, students, and community members with an interest in astronomy.
The video posted on YouTube “shows two objects appearing about a minute apart. Or two separate objects that were close together in the same orbital plane’. Marco Langbroek, a satellite expert from Leiden University, explains this in a blog post. The second object was particularly ‘spectacular’, he says. Adding that the two objects may belong to a single object that has previously separated.
Geomagnetic storm
As many as 40 SpaceX Starlink satellites were killed. These were all launched from Kennedy Space Center on Feb. 3. In addition, SpaceX says that 40 of the 49 satellites launched to space “will re-enter or have already re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.” The satellites will disintegrate upon reentry.
We can expect even more of this in the coming days. Then Langbroek also says “keep an eye on the sky!”, if you would like to experience this live. If not, the images are below.
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