LETTER FROM THE CARIBBEAN

From Jamaica to Cuba, including the Bahamas, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the spectacular phenomenon that appeared in the skies on January 16 was observed from several countries in the northern Caribbean.

That evening, some eight minutes after its launch from the Boca Chica base in Texas, the second stage of the Starship mega rocket – a heavy launcher manufactured by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX, Elon Musk's company) – disintegrated in the thermosphere at 146 kilometers altitude, due to a technical incident, causing a spectacle akin to a meteor shower.

"I heard a very loud bang," recounted Lori Kaine, a resident of Providenciales, the most populous of the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British overseas territory southeast of the Bahamas. "The sky turned red" and was streaked with "several lines" of light forming a "wide beam of color," said the mother. The incident panicked Kaine's dogs and disrupted air traffic in the area. Many residents shared images of the glowing streaks in the sky on social media.

Seven weeks later, on March 6, a new Starship rocket suffered the same fate, once again lighting up the sky. "During Starship's ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost," SpaceX said on its X account, promising "a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA [US Federal Aviation Administration]."

You have 72.15% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.