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Mysterious lights appear in the sky of California, in the United States
Mysterious beams of light appeared over the weekend in the sky over Sacramento, a city in California, in the United States.
The lights were seen on Friday night (17), surprising people who were in the streets to participate in the celebrations for St. Patrick’s Day. Many posted videos of the unusual sight on social media.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said he had the answer. In an interview with the Associated Press, he said he was 99.9% convinced it’s about burning space debris.
McDowell said that Japanese communications equipment that traveled to and from Earth to carry information to the International Space Station became obsolete in 2017. That year, the 310-kilogram satellite was retired and, in 2020, ejected from the station because it occupied lots of space. It would burn up completely upon entering the atmosphere.
The burning wreckage created a “light show in the sky”, said McDowell. He estimated that the supposed satellite remnants were 65 kilometers high and were flying at thousands of kilometers per hour.
Jaime Hernandez was partying Friday night in Sacramento when his friends saw the lights. Hernandez recorded the phenomenon, which finished in about 40 secondshe said on Saturday.
“We were surprised but delighted that we saw this,” Hernandez said in an email. “None of us had ever seen anything like it.”
The owner of the brewery he was at then posted the video of Hernandez on Instagram asking what the mystery could be, and McDowell responded.
The US space force has confirmed that an interorbital communication system has re-entered Earth from California.
