Columbia had come apart in a “catastrophic event” 181,000 feet above Corsicana and Palestine, southeast of Dallas, traveling more than 11,000 mph. As the vehicle broke up, lighter pieces decelerated quickly and floated to earth. Denser objects like the shuttle’s main engines continued along a ballistic path at supersonic speed until they impacted the ground farther east. Each one of the tens of thousands of pieces of debris produced its own sonic boom as it passed overhead. Wreckage of the broken shuttle—and the remains of her crew—rained down over Texas and Louisiana for the next half hour
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