“A sonic boom”: California in shock after Musk's latest stunt

On Sunday morning, worried messages from Californians flooded X (formerly Twitter). What happened in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas? An explosion? An earthquake?

"My window shook," said one witness, quoted by Newsweek. "At first, I thought it was the beginning of an earthquake. There was a double boom not long ago. What's going on? I don't like this!" detailed another user. Even the experts at EMSC, an independent organisation specialising in real-time earthquake alerts, got the origin of the phenomenon wrong. "Possible earthquake felt 49 seconds ago in California. Did you feel it?"

Musk strikes again

As the worries grew, none other than Elon Musk himself eventually reassured everyone. In fact, it was the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft making its grand return to Earth after spending 31 days in space, according to L’Indépendant. It had been on a mission resupplying the ISS (International Space Station). This was a planned and successful return that could be followed live on X: "Dragon will also announce its arrival with a brief sonic boom before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean."

The explosion heard in Los Angeles was simply the craft breaking the sound barrier.

(MH with Manon Pierre - Source: L’Indépendant - Illustration: ©Unsplash)