You may have seen a strange light in the night sky last night.
The American Meteor Society says this is not a fireball or meteor of any sort. They say it is most likely rocket or satellite debris, specifically the SpaceX Dragon Freedom-2 satellite that initially launched the end of September last year.
The society's map shows the debris entering the atmosphere west of Stockton, CA and moving all the way up to Fallon before disappearing.
Neighbors are saying it was really cool to watch.
Reno resident Angel Cruz says, "We didn't know what it was. It kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and we were like 'What is that?' The tail got longer, and it started breaking up. As soon as it started breaking up, I was like 'Wow, we're seeing falling debris from space'. We didn't know if it was a meteor, satellite or rocket, but it was pretty obvious what it was after it started breaking up."
According to Aerospace, debris from the satellite was predicted to fall back into the atmosphere last night. There were no crew members in this falling debris.
The American Meteor Society tells us the way you can tell if something in the sky is a meteor or space junk is speed and time.
They say meteors enter the atmosphere at a high speed and rarely last more than a few seconds. While debris on the other hand is much slower and can last up to a minute or more.
Cruz says, "I feel like it might be one of those once in a lifetime episodes; but then after it was gone, I was more worried where it was going to land."
The chances of debris reaching the ground is very low as most of the time it burns up. In fact, over the last fifty years NASA has recorded an average of only one piece of debris reaching land per day.
