Full video of meteor-like event @BadAstronomer
A strange bright light was seen across California, Utah, and Nevada this evening. Matt Holt caught a video of it, which you can watch above. What was the bright light? We have multiple videos below, and you can see photos in this article.
Here’s what you need to know.
Matt Holt, who took the video, said that the debris was filmed in Utah valley and appeared to in the south, moving to the east, and disappearing over the Wasatch front mountain range:
@BadAstronomer Debris was to the south, going due east, disappearing over the Wasatch front mountain range from my perspective
In Salt Lake, “Captain Dewley” shared a photo on YouTube that captures the object well:
In Sacramento, Jessie Moreno took a video too, which shows an object breaking up into two smaller objects. The video’s a little shaky and hard to see at times:
Some believe the debris to be from a meteor, but others say it is too slow-moving.
On Twitter, @Hexham67 said he could see it in San Diego, but from his perspective it was bright and appeared to have a green contrail before it broke up. This might lend more credence to the theory that it was a meteor streaking across the sky.
On Twitter, @BadAstronomer mentioned that it was moving far too slowly to be the Delta Aquarid meteor, and was likely space junk:
The video is beginning to trend on Twitter with the hashtag #ufo, however few believe that was actually what the object is. On Reddit, some have identified the object as space debris re-entering from low orbit. More specifically, some local Reddit stargazers are saying that, according to Sat View’s map, it was likely the upper stage CZ-7-R/B re-entering from low orbit. The CZ-7-R/B is part of the Chinese Long March 7 rocket.
Observation reports from Utah indicate the second stage from the first Chang Zheng 7 rocket, launched Jun 25, reentered at 0440 UTC
Do you agree with the assessment? See a collection of videos below to help you decide:
Unbelievable meteor shower tonight!!!!
And this video shows it passing over Bryce:
Crazy #meteor over Bryce… Never seen anything like it.
In this video, you can see it passing over Reno:
This video, from Fresno, shows a good view of the shooting star or falling rocket:
This beautiful video shows it breaking up above Salt Lake City, from the SLC airport: