A mass of fireballs streaked across the southern sky Saturday night, leaving witnesses stunned and concerned — especially in light of reports of mysterious drone sightings in New Jersey and throughout the Northeast.
However, this time the truth is out.
Experts say the spectacular light show was the result of an abandoned Chinese satellite colliding with Earth’s atmosphere.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics posted on
Cell phone videos shared by stunned Earthlings showed what appeared to be a giant shooting star that broke into a cluster of tiny fireballs as the satellite disintegrated.
“I just saw a meteor fall to Earth in Mobile, Alabama – it was huge and the trail was amazing!” A user posted on X.
“I convinced myself someone lit some weird Christmas lights on the hill,” wrote another.
McDowell said the satellite was used for imaging by the Beijing-based company Spaceview.
Not everyone is buying the “harmless space junk” narrative.
“Chinese satellites and Chinese drones on US soil. I mean what could go wrong,” wrote another.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), space debris falling back to Earth is very common, with 200–400 objects re-entering the atmosphere each year.
Most of these decompose completely before reaching land, and the fragments that remain intact end up in the ocean.
NOAA said there are about 30,000 pieces of floating space junk larger than a softball, and about 1,000 of them as big as a spaceship.
NASA monitors space junk with a space monitoring network that uses a combination of space and ground-based instruments.
(tags to translate)US news(T)China(T)Louisiana(T)Meteor(T)Satellite
