I have improved the sprite for the re-entry effect. It still needs some polishing, but now the re-entry effect looks like this up-close.
It is a very simple particle-based effect implementing some basic hypersonic entry physics (just the most generic unitless heat flux + radiation model with basic burning-down). It uses very simplistic “blob” shapes as base particles (bright tip, elongated tail). Despite the model being simple the results are very lively and fun to look at.
An extra bonus picture of many objects reentering from generally same heading (inclination) over a given area. Looks kind of fun:
Plus a video of the sky, sun, moon and clouds all blending together with the mask: