Video: Bright fireball seen across Netherlands, said to be satellite from Musk's SpaceX
A bright fireball appeared over parts of the Netherlands around 10:30 p.m. on Friday as a Starlink satellite from Elon Musk’s SpaceX burned up after re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.
Sightings came from Amsterdam, Utrecht, Almere, Dronten, Arnhem, the Frisian Gaastmeer, Texel, Mijdrecht, and other locations. Satellite expert Marco Langbroek from TU Delft identified the object as Starlink 1541.
“It entered the atmosphere above England and started breaking up and burning up there. That typically happens at altitudes between 90 and 50 kilometers,” Langbroek told NOS.
Langbroek saw it pass over Texel. “The re-entry was expected for this night, but because there was an uncertainty of four hours, it was hard to predict exactly when. I was sitting with a few people on the deck of a sailboat when we saw it, entirely by chance.” He noted, “There was also a vapor trail visible in the atmosphere for minutes. Those are microscopic metal particles left behind in the upper parts of the atmosphere.”
Astronomer Lucas Ellerbroek watched the fireball over Amsterdam. “The bigger such a piece of space debris is, the more fire you see,” he explained.
Much of an object is lost during atmospheric entry, as with meteors. Ellerbroek said, "If you have a rock of a meter, that causes a large fireball, but the remnant that lands on Earth does not have to be larger than a few centimeters. It breaks apart into fragments that are no larger than pebbles.”
Ellerbroek said more details should emerge Saturday morning on whether the satellite completely disintegrated.
But “it has probably burned up completely, although you can never completely rule out that some fragments remained," Ellerbroek said. "Those then presumably came down in Germany or Eastern Europe.”
Only six meteorites have been found in the Netherlands across the centuries. The first landed near Uden in 1840. The latest, recovered near Broek in Waterland in 2017, was a half-kilogram stone that damaged a roof.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX started launching Starlink satellites in 2019. The more than 10,000 relatively small satellites orbit at about 500 kilometers and deliver internet without extensive ground systems.
The network has assisted Ukrainian drones in locating targets during the war with Russia. It was also reportedly used by Iranians when the government restricted internet access. Astronomers criticize the project for occupying limited space around Earth and creating light pollution that interferes with observations of the universe.
