A dazzling display of fireballs streaked across the night sky in the southern United States on Sunday.
The light show, initially mistaken for a meteor shower, was caused by the uncontrolled re-entry of a half-ton Chinese satellite into Earth’s atmosphere.
The SuperView-1 02 satellite broke apart over New Orleans during night time according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. People across Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri reported seeing the event, 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 user on X. Another wrote, “I convinced myself that someone had some strange Christmas lights up on a hill.”
Meteorologist Nathan Scott, based in Little Rock, Arkansas, confirmed the slow-moving beams of light were not 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 space junk.
It was one of four imaging satellites launched to orbit at 500 km altitude. After being decommissioned, it slowly drifted towards Earth, ending in Sunday’s fiery reentry.
Space debris re-entering the atmosphere is a regular occurrence, with 200-400 objects falling to Earth each year, according to the National oceanic and atmospheric administration (NOAA). Most of these burn up completely before reaching the ground, and the few remnants that survive typically land in the ocean.
Nasa monitors space debris using a Space Surveillance Network, which combines ground and space-based equipment to track over 30,000 objects larger than a softball in orbit. Experts continue to study the impact of re-entering debris and its potential risks.
The light show comes amid recent controversies, especially following reports of mysterious drone sightings in New Jersey that sparked widespread debate.