Last Friday’s Patrick’s Day celebrations in Sacramento, California saw mysterious streaks of light in the city’s sky, raising many questions and varying interpretations on social media.
Witnesses said, according to the network CBS US News reported that the “show” lasted less than a minute.
But the mystery didn’t remain a mystery for long, at least to those who follow astronomical news.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, tells the network he is 99.9% confident the streaks of light are the result of burning space debris that has entered Earth’s atmosphere.
McDowell said the Japanese communications equipment that sent information from the International Space Station to the communications satellite became obsolete when the carrier satellite was retired in 2017, and the 683-pound instrument was removed from the space station, McDowell said. In 2020 it took place.
The burning debris created “a spectacular light show in the sky,” McDowell said. He estimated that the wreckage was about 40 miles high and fell at great speed.
The network quoted another space expert as saying, “The explanations regarding aliens are false.”
“We believe that aliens that can travel through space and reach Earth will be more intelligent than burning up when they enter Earth’s atmosphere,” he added.
According to the NASA website, the U.S. Department of Defense’s sensors track about 27,000 pieces of space debris orbiting Earth.
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