A sheriff’s official said a piece of the SpaceX rocket was found last week in Washington state, followed by days of bright comet-like stripes illuminating the night sky over the Pacific Northwest.
The space company “recovered a joint-overlapped pressure vessel from last week’s Falcon 9 re-entry,” the Grant County Sheriff’s Office fee tweeted Friday.
The ship, which was about 5 feet tall, was found last week on private property in the center of the state, southwest Grant County.
There was no damage, and it left a 4 to 5-inch impact mark in the ground, said Kyle Foreman, the sheriff’s department’s public information officer. SpaceX was notified on Monday and arrived on Tuesday to recover it, he said.
Exactly where it fell has not been revealed. “Media and Treasure Hunters: We’re not announcing the specialty. The property owner just wants to be alone,” the sheriff’s office said in a tweet. It fell on a farmer’s farm, according to a report in the Tri-City Herald newspaper.
On March 25, Washington, D.C., and Reagan were hit by ropes. Some thought it was from a meteor or a comet.
SpaceX never seems to have publicly confirmed the involvement of its rocket. But the signs quickly point that way.
National Weather Service in Seattle Tweeted Based on that unofficial information, “the brightest objects widely released in the sky were the debris of the Falcon 9 rocket 2nd phase, which did not successfully burn the orbit.” An astronomer told Seattle-based NBC affiliate Keing that it was a Falcon 9 rocket debris.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment Friday night.
There are no reports of losses from the Match 25 event. The foreman said no other reports of debris came to the Grant County Sheriff’s Office fee.
The Falcon 9 is a reusable two-stage rocket. The second phase delivers the payload. The first phase is designed to return to Earth and the ground. According to the company’s website, 111 Falcon 9s with 71 landings have been launched so far.
Foreman said his understanding is that the pressure vessel that was found is used for the storage of helium.
