Imaginations ran wild over the weekend as many spectators in Hawaii wondered what the cluster of blinking lights was that traveled across the night sky late Saturday.
Astronomers say that in all likelihood it was a rocket booster that pierced through Earth’s atmosphere after being in orbit since 2008.
The booster was used to help launch Venezuela’s communications satellite VENESAT-1 from China in October 2008.
Since then it has been in orbit around Earth, said Roy Gal, associate astronomer of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Over time it slowed in a low orbit and re-entered the atmosphere at about 10:03 p.m. (Hawaii time)
Saturday.
Spectators — some in fear and others in awe — posted photos and videos on social media of the cluster of lights.
Some thought they possibly spotted Starlink satellites launched by SpaceX. The company has been launching satellites to provide broadband internet service around the world.
Others wondered whether they saw a meteor shower or a UFO operated by aliens.
Gal noted an aerospace company tracked and predicted the reentry of the booster, which appeared to correlate to Saturday’s reentry window.
What residents saw, he added, was the rocket body heating up in reentry and breaking up into pieces. “The friction from the atmosphere makes it glow and burn.”
John O’Meara, chief scientist of the W.M. Keck Observatory, said the booster, traveling at more than 20,000 mph, then disintegrated over the Pacific Ocean.
The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope atop Mauna Kea captured a streak image of the rocket booster darting across the sky.
O’Meara said “space junk” enters the atmosphere all the time. “We just usually don’t see it because we’re not in the right space to see it.”
This time, Hawaii was in the right place at the right time, he added.
