Mysterious Streaks of Light Seen in the Sky Friday in California (apnews.com) 40
"Mysterious streaks of light were seen in the sky in the Sacramento area Friday night," reports the Associated Press.
The lights lasted about 40 seconds, remembered one witness who filmed the lights while enjoying a local brewery. The brewery then asked on Instagram if anyone could solve the mystery, the report continues: Jonathan McDowell says he can. McDowell is an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. McDowell said Saturday in an interview with The Associated Press that he's 99.9% confident the streaks of light were from burning space debris.
McDowell said that a Japanese communications package that relayed information from the International Space Station to a communications satellite and then back to Earth became obsolete in 2017 when the satellite was retired. The equipment, weighing 310 kilograms (683 pounds), was jettisoned from the space station in 2020 because it was taking up valuable space and would burn up completely upon reentry, McDowell added....
He estimated the debris was about 40 miles high, going thousands of miles per hour. The U.S. 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.
The lights lasted about 40 seconds, remembered one witness who filmed the lights while enjoying a local brewery. The brewery then asked on Instagram if anyone could solve the mystery, the report continues: Jonathan McDowell says he can. McDowell is an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. McDowell said Saturday in an interview with The Associated Press that he's 99.9% confident the streaks of light were from burning space debris.
McDowell said that a Japanese communications package that relayed information from the International Space Station to a communications satellite and then back to Earth became obsolete in 2017 when the satellite was retired. The equipment, weighing 310 kilograms (683 pounds), was jettisoned from the space station in 2020 because it was taking up valuable space and would burn up completely upon reentry, McDowell added....
He estimated the debris was about 40 miles high, going thousands of miles per hour. The U.S. 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.
More common (Score:1)
Seems like this will be more an more common into the future. Can we plan a whole series of them for the 4th of July?
Re:More common (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More common (Score:4, Funny)
Dear Satellite Engineers,
I'd like to suggest some interesting materials for building satellites:
https://www.usgs.gov/media/ima... [usgs.gov]
project Blue Beam (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Seems like this will be more an more common into the future. Can we plan a whole series of them for the 4th of July?
Does Governonr Gruesome have enough Brylcreem (yeah, I'm old school) in his hair to make that happen?
Re: (Score:1)
modding.
if i had the points to mod you.
it would be modded as.
jacka**
RE: Mysterious Streaks of Light Seen in the Sky Fr (Score:2, Funny)
Jewish Space Lasers,
ain't that right MTG
Re: (Score:1)
There are no aliens in the first place, and also they are not Jewish, and furthermore they don't have space lasers, because that would be silly. Even if they did, they wouldn't shoot them at Earth because they are friendly, and they *certianly* wouldn't shoot them at California, because they are definitely not closely aligned, ideologically, with the Consortium of Midwestern Conservatives, which in fact doesn't even exist and was NOT part of the partnership that first concealed the
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget that they are also cannibals.
Based on the summary (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't seem mysterious at all. And the video just about screams "big pieces of related space junk entering the atmosphere".
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Based on the summary (Score:4, Insightful)
it means they have an iphone
Re:Based on the summary (Score:4, Informative)
it means they have an iphone
It means they have an iDevice and didn't do this:
Settings > General > Keyboards > Smart Punctuation - Turn it off.
You're welcome.
Re: (Score:2)
Your complaint is a combination of sad and true. This is a discussion forum. As such, it should handle "discussion" language, including actual quotations, with aplomb. But everybody seems to have accepted that Slashdot has checked out on the subject, and so somehow it's the iOS user's problem.
Dumbing down our collective text to accommodate backwards, narrow minded jackassery shouldn't be the answer. But it's the only one we're getting.
Re: (Score:3)
"Californians Sight Discarded ISS Equipment Burning Up on Reentry"
They're engaged in taking a trivial piece of information and making you click.
It's disreputable but they don't care because it's cheap.
Before there was star wars there was.. (Score:1)
Space Force, Knocking out enemy satellites,
Or did the ISS finally flush?
Re: (Score:2)
Don't believe the cover story (Score:3)
It was SG1. Another Goa'uld mothership bites the dust.
That's ("just" space junk entering the atmosphere. (Score:2)
Had' that a year ago on a long voyage to Portugal. Was in Sagres - the most western point of continental Europe aka "the End of the World" - for an evening trip. On the way back - it was dark already - I look my right to the atlantic and see super-bright lights shining across the sky and wonder why a group of helicopters would be shining strong searchlights backwards. It was really strange. 30 seconds in it finally dawns on my that I'm observing space debris entering the atmosphere. The spectacle went on fo
Re: (Score:1)
You mean the one that's not as far west as Lisbon?
My God, Bones (Score:3)
My God Bones, what have I done?
Enjoying a brewery? (Score:2)
Solar flares? (Score:2)
Much slower solar flares that took a few weeks to reach us? I mean, we almost got scorched at the beginning of the year after all.
Probably Renentry Moduels - No Worries : ) (Score:2)
define burn up (Score:2)
What does "burn up in the atmosphere" really mean? Does the copper somehow become a gas? What about the organic material? Seems to me this stuff turns to soot and dust of various kinds, and maybe even larger pieces. I doubt that even the organic material, like plastics, all becomes CO_2 and other gases.