Does anyone on this site have a working knowledge of a sidewinder missle?  As I understand they search a difference in light and not heat to target.

 It seems poor marksmanship to see the missle impact the payload section of this ballon where all the secret stuff is and not puncture the canopy area and maybe find something left to examin. I recall being impressed watching missles being deliver through a small window on the news clear back in the desert storm days.

To puncture the baloon would allow the new virus to escape. By creating an explosion everything goes away.

I don't know anything about the sidewinder but you could clearly see the large piece (no idea what it is) seperate from the balloon and falling straight down.  It's gonna be small pieces from hitting the water though. 

There is no "marksmanship" in shooting an Aim-9. The seeker head locks on, you get a tone in your headset, you pull the trigger and the missile does the rest. Where it hits or detonates, depends on the fuse. On a semi-stationary target like a balloon, the missile tracked directly to the temperature differentrial it was designed to target. 

 How convient for China that there won't be anything left of the payload to determine what that ballon was capable of, its steering ability, or its actual mission.

So AFTER the spy balloon has completed  it's mission the military decided to spend ~$450,000 on a missile to shoot it down.

Nothing like closing the barn door after the cows got loose. 🙄

Biden,Austin,and Gen. Milly ( known Communist Chinese infformant) wanted to be sure China had time to download all the data it collected.

Related question: why use missiles at all, why not guns?  Might result in a slower deflation and greater chance of more recoverable materials.