As terrible as all the pollution from reentries is, I have to say that it's REALLY FREAKING COOL that I now know all the right people to ask to find out what exactly reentered when a journalist sends me a reddit video from a random Canadian city.
I don't know the answer yet, but I know who to ask! (More details soon, hopefully)
And spoiler alert: the odds are extremely high that any reentry anywhere is a Starlink, they're burning up 1 or 2 per day on average.
FYI, the best place to check and see what that cool fireball you saw in the sky was, is this website: https://fireball.amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/browse_events
You can even report your sightings! This helps scientists to find meteorites, though I think a lot of the sightings now are actually reentries.
If you have a fediverse account, you can quote this note from your own instance. Search https://mastodon.social/users/sundogplanets/statuses/115255628787384041 on your instance and quote it. (Note that quoting is not supported in Mastodon.)
