The night sky offered quite a show recently, leaving many people scratching their heads. Starting Sunday evening, videos popped up everywhere online. They showed a bright streak of light, a big fiery ball, cutting across the darkness. Folks naturally got excited, wondering what on earth it could be. Plenty of guesses flew around, with “meteorite” being a top contender.
But a leading expert quickly cleared things up. José María Madiedo, an astrophysicist from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, explained the dazzling display. He confirmed it wasn’t a space rock. Instead, it was most likely a satellite making its fiery return to Earth’s atmosphere.
Imagine something screaming into our air at incredible speed. This object was moving at 29,000 kilometers per hour. The sheer friction turned it glowing hot, incandescent, as it raced through the sky. It eventually broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, a dazzling disintegration. Before that, it zoomed right over the Iberian Peninsula, heading towards the Mediterranean.
Scientists have a strong hunch about what this object was. The most likely theory suggests it was a Starlink satellite. When old satellites come back, they usually burn up. In this case, any pieces that survived the heat likely plopped right into the sea. The whole event was carefully watched and recorded. It was captured by the SMART project, which is coordinated by the CSIC, a well-known scientific research council.