A blinding show of fireballs streaked throughout the evening sky in the southern United States on Sunday.
The light present, initially mistaken for a meteor bathe, was brought on by the uncontrolled re-entry of a half-ton Chinese satellite into Earth’s atmosphere.
The SuperView-1 02 satellite broke aside over New Orleans throughout evening time in response to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer on the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. People throughout Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri reported seeing the occasion, with the American Meteor Society reportedly receiving over 120 sightings.
Videos shared on social media captured the fiery spectacle. “I just saw a meteor falling to Earth in Mobile, Alabama — it was huge, and the trail was amazing!” posted one person on
Meteorologist Nathan Scott, based mostly in Little Rock, Arkansas, confirmed the gradual-shifting beams of light weren’t meteors. “The brilliant display of fireballs last night over Arkansas around 10 pm was NOT meteors. It’s a satellite known as SuperView that burned up during expected re-entry,” Scott posted.
The SuperView-1 02 was launched in 2016 by Beijing’s Siwei Star Co. Ltd. and had been inactive since January 2023 classifying it as area junk.
It was certainly one of 4 imaging satellites launched to orbit at 500 km altitude. After being decommissioned, it slowly drifted towards Earth, ending in Sunday’s fiery reentry.
area particles re-getting into the atmosphere is an everyday prevalence, with 200–400 objects falling to Earth every year, in response to the National oceanic and atmospheric administration (NOAA). Most of those burn up utterly earlier than reaching the bottom, and the few remnants that survive sometimes land in the ocean.
Nasa screens area particles utilizing a Space Surveillance Network, which mixes floor and area-based mostly tools to trace over 30,000 objects bigger than a softball in orbit. Experts proceed to check the impression of re-getting into particles and its potential dangers.
The light present comes amid latest controversies, particularly following studies of mysterious drone sightings in New Jersey that sparked widespread debate.
