The German Air Force has the “artificial racing car“, which flew over eastern Spain on Friday as a Starlink satellite SpaceX satellite system by South African tycoon Elon Musk.
“According to our Space Situation Knowledge Center, this is a re-entry of a Starlink satellite,” the official Air Force account on the social network X announced.
The Fireball and Meteorite Research Network (SPMN) of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) ruled out this Saturday evening that the “artificial fireball” was a ballistic missile, as initially assumed, pointing out that it was manufactured by Re-entry of an artificial object in Earth orbit.
“The preliminary data obtained so far allows us to come to the conclusion that the bolide was created by the re-entry of an artificial object into Earth’s orbit,” such as satellites or Remains of a space rocket, stated the ICE astrophysicist and coordinator of the SPMN, Josep María Trigo. “Reentries are becoming increasingly common,” the researcher noted.
The car, identified by ICE-CSIC as “SPMN290324ART,” flew from France via Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community at around 10:59 p.m. on Friday. fell into the Mediterranean. It was recorded and photographed by numerous astronomy fans in Spain.
The car’s observation area included Aragon, Catalonia, Community of Madrid, Comunitat Valenciana, Euskadi, La Rioja and Navarra, as indicated by the CSIC on its website.