Is there real footage of Tiangong 1 reentry?

Question

There are a couple of videos on the net showing some reentries and claiming them to be Tiangong 1. Is any of them authentic?

I could not find any footage on the websites of the major space agencies (CNSA, NASA, ESA) nor on general or space news websites.

https://imgur.com/gallery/E7xxi I saw this on Imgur, but it's unsourced (obviously). — Magic Octopus Urn, Apr 02 '18 at 12:24
Similarly, this one: https://imgur.com/gallery/aDyCJ (also unsourced) — Jorn Vernee, Apr 02 '18 at 22:01

score 21 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 02 '18 at 10:08

As of this point we do not have actual footage of the reentry.

It occurred somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, there is very little to no population there. Almost no planes were at the reentry point. Maybe per coincidence some fisherman or island inhabitant just happened to catch it, but I think it is unlikely.

There is some fake footage, mostly consisting of people filming planes, or shining flashlights at clouds.

A few space agencies and especially the US military probably have some satellite imagery showing a fireball, but will not release it.

A fireball may have been spotted in publicly available satellite imagery. See this twitter thread.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 02 '18 at 20:36

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The Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques near Bonn, Germany released a picture from a distance of 270 kms.

There is some interesting information about how they tracked it in space.com

answered Apr 02 '18 at 20:36

James Poulose

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That's a relatively-high-altitude (270 km/170 mi) radar image, not a re-entry photograph. – Mark Apr 02 '18 at 22:29
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This isn't a image of the re-entry. – Organic Marble Apr 02 '18 at 23:33
I've just asked Detailed radar imaging of Tiangong-1; how do they do that? – uhoh Nov 09 '18 at 14:43

Is there real footage of Tiangong 1 reentry?

2 Answers2

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