Mystery solved What's behind the fireballs in the Swiss night sky
People from all over Switzerland are reporting spectacular sightings in the sky. Burning trails of light illuminate the darkness and race across Switzerland.
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- Unknown light objects were spotted over Switzerland on Tuesday evening.
- Numerous people reported their observations and videos circulated online.
- Now it's clear: it's a Starlink satellite.
Readers from all over Switzerland have sent spectacular images of the sky to "Blick" and "20 Minuten". An unknown light object can be seen in the sky. Many suspect a meteor behind the phenomenon. Burning up space debris could also have caused the impressive event. At first, however, it remained speculation.
On Wednesday morning, it became clear that the mysterious object was a satellite from the private US space company SpaceX. According to the German Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK), it was visible in southern Germany and entered the Earth's atmosphere over Switzerland. The Space Situational Awareness Center of the German Armed Forces had transmitted this information to the BBK.
A reader reporter from Staufen AG wrote to "Blick": "We were sitting comfortably on the terrace when we suddenly spotted these fireballs in the sky. It was fascinating!"
"I've never seen anything so beautiful", writes a news scout from "20 Minuten" in Allschwil. Reports of the event also came from the cantons of Basel, Bern, Zurich, Aargau, Glarus and St. Gallen.
The president of the Astronomische Gesellschaft Zürcher Unterland, Fabian Mathis, told Blick: "Due to the rather slow speed and the type of defragmentation, I would guess that it was crashing space debris or something similar." The expert is not assuming a classic meteor - and is right, as is now known.