Bright object in Pacific Northwest sky was rocket debris
There was quite a bit of discussion on social media Thursday night around 9 pm, as a bright streak appeared in the sky across the Pacific Northwest. People around KMUN’s local listening area posted videos of what looked like a meteor.
The National Weather Service’s Portland office tweeted Thursday night that its meteorologists did not yet know an official reason for the streak of light.
Astronomers later confirmed that the bright objects in the sky were debris from a Space X Falcon 9 rocket 2nd stage that did not successfully have a deorbit burn. Thursday’s event was the rocket reentering Earth’s atmosphere after 22 days in orbit.
There were NO expected impacts on the ground in our region at this time from this incident.