A mysterious streak of light spotted over California was caused by a piece of Chinese space debris plummeting to Earth, experts say.
Residents from Sacramento to San Diego were dazzled by the light show around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday. Speculation ranged from a meteor shower to a UFO, but in the end it turned out to be nothing more than the remains of a Chinese spacecraft that had re-entered the atmosphere.
The pile of space junk was an orbital module from China’s Shenzhou 15 spacecraft Astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell Confirmed via social media post.
Shenzhou-15 has been in orbit for more than a year, having launched three astronauts to China’s Tiangong space station on a six-month mission in November 2022. According to Space.com.
movie Get it at ABC7 Several fireballs were visible as long streaks of light illuminating the night sky.
The Shenzhou orbiter weighs about 3,300 pounds and will provide space for astronauts, according to Space.com.
The Shenzhou reentry module is not designed to safely return to Earth after its mission, the newspaper reported.
The module was expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere early Tuesday morning, ABC7 reported.
Many who saw the scene initially suspected it was part of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched 22 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara about six hours earlier. I believed.
