Mysterious streaks of light seen in the sky in California last week were most likely burning space debris re-entering earth’s atmosphere.
Shocked St. Patrick’s Day revellers posted videos of the sight on social media.
Jaime Hernandez was part of the crowd that began filming the lights as they zoomed past.
‘It was over in about 40 seconds,’ Hernandez told the Associated Press on Saturday.
‘Mainly, we were in shock, but amazed that we got to witness it,’ said Hernandez. ‘None of us had ever seen anything like it.’
The brewery owner posted Hernandez’s video to Instagram, asking if anyone could solve the mystery.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics responded saying he was 99.9% confident the streaks of light were from burning space debris.
McDowell told The Associated Press that the streaks of light were most likely debris from a Japanese communications package that relayed information from the International Space Station (ISS).
The satellite was retired when it became obsolete in 2017 and jettisoned from the space station in 2020 because it was taking up valuable space and would burn up completely upon reentry, McDowell added.
The equipment, weighing 310 kilograms could have been responsible for the flaming bits of wreckage creating a ‘spectacular light show in the sky,’ said McDowell said.
He estimated the debris was about 40 miles high, going thousands of miles per hour.
The US Space Force confirmed the re-entry path over California for the Inter-Orbit Communication System, and the timing is consistent with what people saw in the sky, he added.
Earlier this month, scientists called for a binding treaty to protect the Earth’s orbit from space debris.
An international team of experts said there are around 100 trillion pieces of old satellites circling the planet that are not being tracked.
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