Enlarge (credit: Andrea Nissotti / EyeEm)

On Saturday afternoon, US jets intercepted the Chinese surveillance balloon as it was leaving the continental US. Live footage of the event shows contrails of aircraft approaching the balloon, followed by a puff of smoke that may indicate the explosion of some ordnance near the balloon's envelope—a reporter is heard saying "they just shot it" in the video embedded below. The envelope clearly loses structural integrity shortly afterwards as it plunges towards the ocean. Reportedly, the events took place near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Here's video of it being shot down near Myrtle Beach via Katie Herrmann #ChineseSpyBalloon pic.twitter.com/KmT9rL2bR7

— Brad Panovich (@wxbrad) February 4, 2023

Shortly afterwards, the US Department of Defense (DOD) released a statement attributed to its Secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, that confirmed the interception was performed by US fighter jets on the order of President Biden. The DOD identifies the hardware as a "high altitude surveillance balloon," and says that the President authorized shooting it down as early as Wednesday. The military, however, determined that this could not be done without posing a risk to US citizens, either due to debris from the balloon itself, or from the ordnance used to destroy it.

As a result, the military waited until the balloon was far enough offshore to no longer pose a risk to land, but close enough that it would fall within US territorial waters, ensuring that the country would be the first to recover any hardware that survived the plunge into the sea. Secretary Austin also thanked Canada for its assistance in tracking and intercepting the balloon through the countries' cooperative North American defense organization, NORAD.

Enlarge / Stratospheric weather balloons are released every day, such as this one from the Technical University of Munich in 2021. The Chinese balloon is likely much larger and more sophisticated. (credit: Tobias Hase/picture alliance via Getty Images)

On Thursday, US officials confirmed that a high-altitude balloon, launched days ago by the Chinese government, has been flying over the northern United States. This has since become an international incident and led the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to delay a high-profile visit to China to meet with the nation's president, Xi Jinping.

The balloon's flight raises several questions—such as, just what the heck is it doing there? This story will address what is known and not known about the flight. The information below is based on public statements, other news reports, and an interview with a stratospheric balloon expert, Andrew Antonio, whose company, Urban Sky, is developing the world’s first reusable stratospheric balloons for remote sensing.

How big is the balloon?

Enlarge / Passengers wearing face masks wait to board a high-speed railway train in Guangzhou South railway station on January 15, 2023, in Guangzhou, China. China is currently experiencing Spring Festival travel season, where millions of Chinese travel around the country before celebrating the Chinese or Lunar New Year. (credit: Getty | Vernon Yuen/NurPhoto )

China is now reporting that nearly 60,000 people had died of COVID-19 since early December when the country abruptly abandoned its zero-COVID policy and omicron subvariants began ripping through its population. The new death toll is a stark revision from China's previously reported figure for that period, which was just 37. But experts remain skeptical that the new, much larger tally is a complete accounting, and the World Health Organization continues to press the country to release more data.

In a Saturday press conference in Beijing, the Medical Administration Director of China's National Health Commission (NHC), Jiao Yahui, told reporters that the country recorded 59,938 COVID-related deaths between December 8 and January 12. Of those, 5,503 deaths were specifically linked to respiratory failure, and 54,435 were associated with underlying conditions, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.

The new figures double the country's tally of COVID-19 deaths due specifically to COVID-19 respiratory failure, bringing the pandemic total to 10,775. Previously, those deaths—the ones due to COVID-19 respiratory failure or pneumonia—were the only deaths that China counted as caused by COVID-19, which drew criticism from WHO officials, who called the classification "too narrow."