Social media in Granada came alive on Sunday night after a fireball streaked across the night's sky, virtually from one side to the other.

But it wasn’t a lump of rock hitting the atmosphere but rather an artificial object (rocket part) reentering the atmosphere, according to José María Madiedo, who is a professor of astrophysics at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC)

This piece of ‘space junk,’ which made its appearance at 23.49h, was part of the Chinese rocket, Jielong-3, which had been launched on the 8th.

It entered the atmosphere at a speed of 29,000km per hour some 118km up over the Atlantic Ocean, heading North-East, crossing the sky over Andalucía. The friction with the air caused it to begin to disintegrate and burn.

Once it passed over the Balearic Islands the SMART trackers lost sight of it but if any pieces did survive the burn up, then they would have landed in the sea.

(News: Granada, Andalucia)

Keywords, Fireball, Jielong-3, Chinese Rocket, Reentered Atmosphere, Space Junk

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