SEATTLE, Wash. (AP) — Thousands of people in the Pacific Northwest, including Whatcom County, saw bright lights in the night sky on Thursday.
KIRO meteorologist Morgan Palmer says the streak of slow moving lights was space junk entering the earth’s atmosphere.
This was the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket launched three weeks ago that experienced a failed deorbit burn.
The debris was supposed to fall into the Pacific ocean south of Alaska but missed its mark and streaked over western Washington.
The Seattle Times reported the rocket delivered Redmond-built Starlink satellites into orbit earlier this week.
SpaceX said Wednesday that the Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth and landed as planned on its ocean-going barge off the coast of Florida.
