BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – A wide, colorful streak of pulsating lights seen across the Pacific Northwest sky just before 9 p.m. apparently was the descending, flaming second stage of a rocket that launched Starlink satellites earlier this month on Thursday.
We’ve gotten some calls about this! This is similar to what we’ve seen in all of your videos. Not official, but this fits exactly. https://t.co/UX3SMtYwP0
– NWS Portland (@NWSPortland) March 26, 2021
Astronomer Johnathon McDowell said the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, from a launch from the Starlink satellites on March 4, “did not cause a deorbit combustion and is now returning to orbit after 22 days.”
Kristin Collins, who lives in the Tetherow area of northwest Bend, was sitting on the sofa and looking out the window of a front door when she saw the streak of colorful lights moving slowly across the sky.
‘I turned and screamed for my husband, stood there with a dog on the street and thought,’ Have I seen too many sci-fi movies? ‘It took forever, like 25 seconds?
Jeff Stoltenburg said he saw what looked like “a HUGE, multiple, scintillating, scintillating meteor from his home at Lower Bridge.” “It was unreal.”
There were no reports of damage or other impacts to the ground.
The Seattle Times reports that the rocket launched Starlink satellites built in Redmond, Washington, into orbit earlier this week. SpaceX says the Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth and landed as planned on its seagoing vessel off the coast of Florida.