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In Morocco, a viral video shared this week of a fireball crossing the sky over Agadir has raised many questions. On social media, many speculated that it was a meteorite, but in fact, the object that flew over the country was space debris.
The debris was a piece of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, which was involved in the return mission of astronauts Sunita Williams, Barry Wilmore, Nick Hague (from the US), and Aleksandr Gorbunov (from Russia) back to Earth. It made an uncontrolled reentry over Morocco in the early hours of March 25.
The piece in question, which was observed by many in Morocco, is believed to be the spacecraft's trunk section, discarded after the Dragon deorbited following its departure from the International Space Station (ISS) on March 18. This was explained, Tuesday, by British-American astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who noted on X that the «trunk section jettisoned by Dragon Crew 9 prior to deorbit on March 18 reentered near Agadir, Morocco at 22:41 UTC on March 24».
The trunk section jettisoned by Dragon Crew 9 prior to deorbit on Mar 18 reentered near Agadir, Morocco at 2241 UTC Mar 24. No reports yet of debris found. This is the last Dragon trunk to be intentionally left in orbit for uncontrolled reentry. pic.twitter.com/0r9GPOWwY1
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) March 25, 2025
He added, «No reports yet of debris found. This is the last Dragon trunk to be intentionally left in orbit for uncontrolled reentry».
A debris from a successful return mission
The debris was observed with the naked eye reentering near Agadir, with many people posting videos online of a fireball crossing the sky. One video showed the debris crossing the sky in Tiznit at 10:42 pm.
Dragon Crew 9 Trunk re-entering over Tiznit Morocco at 22:42 GMT.
— Med ZHIRI (@SIMOZT1) March 25, 2025
@planet4589 can you pinpoint the landing zone ? pic.twitter.com/0G4hO7QWm6
Morocco was not the only country where SpaceX debris was observed. Similar instances of SpaceX debris falling uncontrollably have occurred, such as a Falcon 9 rocket part that crashed in Poland in February after failing to deorbit. Investigations by SpaceX and Polish authorities confirmed it belonged to the space agency. There have also been reports of similar incidents in the US and Australia.
It is worth noting that the return mission of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft concluded with a successful splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Tallahassee, last Tuesday, March 18. The mission brought back Williams and Wilmore, two Nasa astronauts, who had been aboard the ISS since June 2024.
Their mission was originally supposed to last a week, but due to a failure with Boeing's Starliner capsule, their return was delayed for over nine months.
