As terrible as all the pollution from reentries is, I have to say that it's REALLY FREAKING COOL that I now know all the right people to ask to find out what exactly reentered when a journalist sends me a reddit video from a random Canadian city.
I don't know the answer yet, but I know who to ask! (More details soon, hopefully)
And spoiler alert: the odds are extremely high that any reentry anywhere is a Starlink, they're burning up 1 or 2 per day on average.
FYI, the best place to check and see what that cool fireball you saw in the sky was, is this website: https://fireball.amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/browse_events
You can even report your sightings! This helps scientists to find meteorites, though I think a lot of the sightings now are actually reentries.
Confirmed! It's a Starlink! Prof. Peter Brown found it in Global Meteor Network data (it maybe was even in my meteor camera! If it was running properly... his team is digging through data now)
Starlink 1066, burned up from Calgary through to mid-Saskatchewan. Now the real question, did it dump debris onto Saskatchewan like at least one other Starlink satellite and a Crew Dragon Trunk last year?
Here's the original reddit post that started my email explosion of an afternoon. Thanks, reddit...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/1no9qmi/anyone_else_see_the_5_fireballs_streak_across_the/
And here's the ground track from @planet4589.bsky.social
Welp, time to go on the radio and ask Saskatchewan farmers out looking for pieces! (Maybe THIS time I can get some small town to issue SpaceX a fine for littering? That would be delightful.)
More info: another journalist sent me more reddit-posted videos from Saskatoon. It's quite impressive how the tight fireball observed over Calgary (see reddit video linked further up in this thread) has shredded into lots of small fireballs by the time it got to Saskatoon. https://www.reddit.com/r/saskatoon/comments/1nolj4b/falling_objectmeteor_above_saskatoon/
Also scary, because those are the bits that might have made it to the ground.
The fireball (that was actually a reentry, as noted) is now on the AMS fireball website: https://fireball.amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/event/2025/6172
Interestingly, they don't have it going all the way to Saskatoon, though I've seen a couple of videos from there. More people should report their observations! (Though I think probably that is super annoying to the people trying to study meteors... yet another part of astronomy SpaceX is destroying)
HAHAHA I love that they quoted me on this "It's like billionaires dropping their garbage on our heads"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saskatoon-space-debris-satelitte-reentry-1.7643516
Here's the official Global Meteor Network camera video of the reentry of Starlink 1066 on Monday night/Tuesday morning from Lucky Lake, Saskatchewan! This video is courtesy University of Western Ontario and Defence R&D Canada.
I counted 13 pieces in the video, how many do we think made it to the ground and are sitting on canola stubble east of Saskatoon?
At this rate, soon we will need warning sirens and reinforced shelters for both humans and wildlife
@sundogplanets You probably already know about this site, but I found it today while trying to possibly respond to that post...
EDIT: LOL I see now you mentioned it upthread. Sorry.
https://fireball.amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/event/2025/6246
Another very good source:
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vqtp5dj2o6rqnge56sz2db5a/post/3lzrnw34fmc2t
Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from billionaires dropping their garbage on your head.
@JamesHMcLaren @benedikt @sundogplanets you would think so but it depends who the customer base is.
@MHowell @sundogplanets Liability falls on the launching state, according to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and 1972 Liability Convention. So regardless of the origin of the launching entity, where it is launched from is who foots the bill.
Though, aside from the Spacelab fine, I'm not sure if there have been many cases. Spacelab was 1979 so I'd be looking at anything more recent to see if it shakes out the same.
Another and potentially much thornier area is if a decommissioned or defunct object collides with another operational object. I think there have been a few cases of defunct satellites crashing into ones still in use, but I don't know how those cases shook out legally. At least one caused some pretty major issues for GPS once.
Everyone gets posted to the front line eventually.
It's about time eggheads stopped walking around with telescopes glued to their eyes, peering into the stars while stepping on poor people on the sidewalk, to whom they are oblivious and unaccountable because of their "taxpayer-funded research". Pull your head out of the sky โ it's the "People's Money" not the "taxpayer's money". The homeless, if they could vote meaningfully, would choose to allocate funds to house themselves, not to buy telescopes for eggheads. Get to work! ๐ฑ
While nobody is homeless because of Science, scientists live in gilded cages, studying Black Holes in distant galaxies on the People's dime, while ignoring poor people, pretending to be innocent academics in ivory towers. Science serves to distract eggheads, into forever chasing esoteric curiosities.
"Solutions"?!? The Earth is objectively worse because of Science & Technology โ overheating atmosphere, polluted Ocean.
"Serve the people or be defunded!"
~ Pol Pot.
@purrperl @sundogplanets The social scientists whose studies are the reason we understand the root causes of homelessness have helped many more people with their policy recommendations than you have helped or will ever help by attacking scientists on the internet.
Maybe get off your computer and get to know some houseless folks. A lot of them love science, too, and understand the root causes of houselessness better than you. They would never advocate for other people to lose their jobs.
@sundogplanets you got this, prof.
Also, thank you.
Prof. Sam Lawler
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