A Chinese satellite has dramatically disintegrated over the U.S. in a mesmerizing "fireball." The spacecraft's fiery demise was visible across several states, footage reveals.
The GaoJing 1-02 commercial imaging satellite was traveling at 17,000 mph (27,400 km/h) when it reentered our atmosphere above New Orleans at 10:08 p.m CST (11.08 p.m. EST on Dec. 21). It then headed north towards Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri, Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, wrote on Bluesky.
