A man has shared a video of the moment a satellite broke apart in the atmosphere.
The impressive footage seems to show satellite disintegration – a destructive breakup of a satellite’s rocket body, structure, or orbital payload.
Breakups can be caused by hypervelocity impacts or explosions, and can leave them falling through space, as reported by What’s The Jam.
Ground tracking radar has been invented to identify a breakup when it observes multiple pieces or to know when to expect one.
The footage was captured over France on Tuesday (27 August) at around 21.30pm.
In the clip, a bright light can be seen whizzing through the air.
However, if you zoom into the video, speckles of the satellite can be seen nearby.
Other pieces break off and fly off into the sky.
The man – who chose not to share his name – said: “Unbelievable, we just saw a kind of meteorite pass through the sky but it was moving in slow motion and then separated into several pieces as if it had exploded!
“What was once a single bright point with a trail now illuminated the sky, with multiple points continuing their paths, each leaving a much broader trail behind.”
The witness said he was concerned at first that it could cause a “shockwave”.
He said: “I began to worry about the explosion and the potential shockwave that could follow, especially for our two-year-old daughter who was already asleep.
“Fortunately, no windows were near her, and we stayed outside on the terrace.
“After all, there was little chance it was a meteorite since the object was moving so slowly across the sky, meaning it likely lacked the energy to cause such a thing.
“Once we collected ourselves, I felt incredibly fortunate to have witnessed this phenomenon and even captured it on video.”
The object since has been confirmed to be a satellite re-entering the earth’s atmosphere, as stated by research platform Vigie-Ciel
The satellite reportedly belonged to Starlink, a company belonging to Elon Musk which provides wireless internet access.
They have over 6,000 satellites in a ‘constellation’ currently orbiting Earth.
It has also been confirmed that ‘Starlink 2382’ had malfunctioned, leaving it to fall to Earth and disintegrate when passing through its atmosphere.
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